Looking Back, Looking Forward

Looking back it's often possible to think of points when you could
have predicted what's happening today. Sometimes you actually did.
Sometimes you merely knew enough to. For instance, when Bush became
president -- it's still hard to say "got elected" -- you knew it
was pretty likely that anyone he wound up appointing to the Supreme
Court would start deciding cases like Roberts and Alito have started
to do. Alito's Kansas death penalty ruling is going to cost us some
millions of dollars in endless litigation just so the state and its
"culture of life" fanatics can kill eight pretty unsavory blokes,
plus maybe one more on trial right now. Lots of other news events
you can roll back too, but some things we just couldn't fathom before
they became too late. When Bush took office there was no doubt that
corruption would sky rocket, that the environment would get hurt bad,
that real wages would stagnate or worse. But while I couldn't think
of anything good he might be willing to do in foreign policy, I had
no idea how fond he would turn out to be of playing war. That took
some while to sink in, but once you took the measure of his policies
and attitudes on Israel, Afghanistan, and Iraq, you could see how
they were going to play out. At least up to a point. Unfortunately,
that point is roughly where we're at right now. It's never been so
hard to predict what's going to come next, because we're entering
into uncharted territory. More and more of the scenarios that seem
possible are things we always considered to be unthinkable, but
more and more of what Bush and Olmert do these days is unthinkable.
And, to say the least, once you cross that line, we have no way to
calculate what the limits of unthinkable really are.

One problem that Bush and Olmert share is that they're nominally
tough guys with feet of clay. Olmert likely feels the need to follow
in Sharon's footsteps in order to maintain his claim to power, and
that puts him on the spot to show how tough he can really be. There
is no effective political opposition to the constant demonization
of Palestinians in Israel, as shown by the fact that Labor Party
leader Peretz has marched in lock step with Olmert. This produces
a relentless wave of rhetoric from the extreme right. The logical
end of that rhetoric is nothing less than genocide. This should be
unthinkable, but it may wind up being merely unthinking. Did, for
instance, the IDF bother to think of what the health effects of
bombing Gaza's only electric power plant and shutting down its
water supplies might be? Either way the answer is grim.

Bush, too, is facing some really major problems because of his
policies, and he faces them with very few options because of his
commitment to his rhetoric. This much we knew and expected. The
scary part is what does he do from here on out. He can't afford
to admit that he just totally screwed everything up. He's got to
find some faint glimmer of future redemption and squeeze it as
hard as he can. He's already flouting the law in cases like NSA
wiretapping. His take on the banking records news was to attack
the New York Times -- in his salad days his most credulous leak
ally. The Supreme Court ruled against his Guantanamo gulag --
suppose he'll pull an Andrew Jackson and taunt the men in robes
to go out and enforce their decision? We're still four months
away from elections that could turn Congress against him. How
dirty, and how desperate, is he going to be in that timeframe?
At least with the elections pending, it's unlikely that he'll
do anything really insane, but what happens afterwards, when
he becomes the lamest of lame ducks? Willing to gamble big,
and sensing little to lose, he's likely to become even more
dangerous.

With Bush, and for that matter Olmert, predicting disaster was
the easy part. Fathoming it is going to be a lot harder.

Chris Shull wrote a piece in the Wichita Eagle on Kathy's mural:

Mural brings Day of the Dead to life

A new mural in north Wichita celebrates the festival and the
neighborhood that surrounds the artwork.

BY CHRIS SHULL
The Wichita Eagle

Janiece Baum-Dixon had a good reason to want a mural painted on the
side of a building she owns in north Wichita.

"It kept getting tagged (with graffiti), sometimes three times a
week," Baum-Dixon said. "So I thought, well, apparently this is a good
place for an art project because everybody else seems to like it."

So Baum-Dixon asked artist Kathy Hull to create a mural about the
Day of the Dead festival. They enlisted neighborhood teenagers to help
paint it.

The mural "Dias de los Muertos" ("Day of the Dead" in Spanish) was
painted in three months and completed June 11.

A dedication celebration will take place at the building on the
northeast corner of Arkansas and 25th Street North from 7 to 9
p.m. today.

Hull's painting -- 11 feet tall and 40 feet long -- depicts a
skeleton family celebrating with a skeleton band.

A skeleton couple is dancing; a skeleton grandmother reaches for
her skeleton grandbaby in its skeleton mother's arms. A skeleton child
plays with its skeleton pet cat.

"People think it is a monkey," Hull said with a chuckle. "Once you
see it up close you'll see the cat is kind of ducking underneath the
table to chase a butterfly."

The playful attitudes of the skeletons mirror the celebratory mood
of the Day of the Dead.

"The mural is not scary," Hull said. "It is fun and inviting and
joyful."

The Day of the Dead honors loved ones who have died. It is
celebrated Nov. 1-2, on All Saints Day and All Souls Day.

Hull included many images closely associated with the Day of the
Dead in her mural -- not just skulls and animated skeletons, but a
graveyard monument, an altar table decorated with marigolds, and
colored cut-paper banners.

She added images from Mayan and Aztec religions, whose traditions
are echoed in the iconography and rituals of the Day of the Dead.

Volunteers from the Hispanic Youth Leadership program of the El
Pueblo Neighborhood Association helped paint it.

Hull and Baum-Dixon hope folks around Wichita will take pride in
the mural and the family-oriented community it represents.

"Each of the skeletons have their own personality," Baum-Dixon
said. "Anybody who looks at the mural can pick one of the figures and
attribute them to their own relatives."

Those Who Don't Spare the Rod

Here's the key quote from Gary Kamiya's
Salon
review of Ron Suskind's The One Percent Solution, on the
question of why Bush decided to invade Iraq:

Many reasons have been advanced for why Bush decided to attack Iraq,
a third-rate Arab dictatorship that posed no threat to the United
States. Some have argued that Bush and Cheney, old oilmen, wanted to
get their hands on Iraq's oil. Others have posited that the
neoconservative civilians in the Pentagon, Wolfowitz and Feith, and
their offstage guru Richard Perle, were driven by their passionate
attachment to Israel. Suskind does not address these arguments, and
his own thesis does not rule them out as contributing causes. But he
argues persuasively that the war, above all, was a "global experiment
in behaviorism": If the U.S. simply hit misbehaving actors in the face
again and again, they would eventually change their behavior. "The
primary impetus for invading Iraq, according to those attending NSC
briefings on the Gulf in this period, was to create a demonstration
model to guide the behavior of anyone with the temerity to acquire
destructive weapons or, in any way, flout the authority of the United
States." This doctrine had been enunciated during the administration's
first week by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who had written a memo
arguing that America must come up with strategies to "dissuade nations
abroad from challenging" America. Saddam was chosen simply because he
was available, and the Wolfowitz-Feith wing was convinced he was an
easy target.

That explanation relegates the decision to primal attitudes rather
than rational interests. Sounds like the don't-spare-the-rod theory
of raising children, which fits in nicely with all those training
wheels metaphors -- but how many parents still follow that approach?
Even so, the idea that whole nations are powerless children or dumb
animals -- after all, that's where most behaviorist notions were developed --
is a grossly inappropriate analogy. Makes you wonder where they came
up with such a theory. Oh yeah, Israel. The architects of Bush's GWOT
aren't allies so much as unabashed admirers of Israel. Still makes
you wonder why they think it works.

Collective Punishment

Israel didn't invent collective punishment. The Israelis learned
most of the fundamentals, and inherited many of the legal tricks,
from the British, who used it effectively against Palestinians in
1937, Iraqis in 1920, and Indians in 1857. The British learned it
from the long history of warfare, but especially from the Romans,
whose ancient empire held a warm spot in the British heart. Of
course, the British could just have well cited the Mongols, who
have recently been touted as models for American managers, but
that never quite fit their self-image.

But the Israelis seem to have missed one subtle point in the
British model: once you win, back off a bit. After the British
crushed the 1937 revolt, they issued the famous White Paper which
cut Jewish immigration to Palestine way back. In doing so, they
conceded the main issue behind the revolt, all the while keeping
their hands on the levers of power. The Israelis, by conceding
nothing, keep having to fight the Palestinians again and again.
You'd think they never learn, but obviously they love the fight
too much. They've just launched another blitzkrieg into Gaza. The
flimsy excuse is to rescue an Israeli soldier captured by a renegade
Palestinian group and held hostage somewhere in the territory. The
effect of their tanks and aircraft will be to damage much property
and to kill or injure many people. Israel's justification for doing
this is their belief in collective responsibility: any time any
Palestinian attacks them, they feel justified in punishing any or
all Palestinians.

A few years back there was a big uproar when some people asserted
that Zionism was a form of racism. To parse this assertion you need
to consider what it is that makes racism a problem. It's not simple
existence of racial differences. (That such differences turn out to
be a confused scientific problem does not matter here. Racists were
happy to construct their theories on fantasy as on fact.) No, the
big problem with racism is that it identifies arbitrary groups and
justifies members of one such group in their discrimination against
and domination over some other group or groups. In other words, the
problem with racism is that it justifies collective punishment.

That the grouping methodology may be something other than race
suggests that "racism" may not be the clearest, most comprehensive
term to describe the phenomenon behind what's wrong with racism, but
that's mere wordplay to evade the point. Racism leads to collective
punishment. If Zionism also leads to collective punishment, then
Zionism shares the most essential characteristic of racism. Maybe
there are some Zionists who don't share this trait, and who don't
support collective punishment of others, in which case it would be
unfair to tar them with this brush. But based on what the Israel's
current political leaders are doing in Gaza, you have to conclude
that Israel is acting as a racist state. Or if you must quibble
with words, pick another word that has the same function in this
context as racist. (In my household the most popular such word is
Nazi, but my wife is Jewish, so that's what pops into her mind
first when she thinks of collective punishment.)

Israel's collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza is nothing
new. It became everyday practice in 1967 when Israel set up its
military occupation regime, but it effectively goes back to 1948:
most people in Gaza are Palestinian exiles from Israeli territory
or their descendents, so the first collective punishment was Israel's
denial of their repatriation. The root, then as now, was the Zionist
notion that Israel should be a Jewish State: collective punishment
of the other is the flipside of collective promotion of one group.
Israelis have rationalized this in many ways, but their only point
has been to obscure the basic fact: the only thing that promoting
one group at the expense of others ensures is constant struggle, for
the other group has no options but to struggle or succumb. This is
what Israel has done ever since 1948, and that is why Palestinians
struggle. Blaming the Palestinians for this is dishonest: Israel's
own actions suffice to cause this struggle.

The kidnapping of the Israeli soldier isn't collective punishment.
It is, rather, collective punishment's poor cousin: an attack on a
purely arbitrary representative of the other side. This is a consequence
of the same grouping logic that Israel practices, but the scale is
different, because the imbalance of power is extreme. If Palestinians
had the same power Israelis have, they would be able to engage in
precision bombing of targets within Israel, and they would be able
to punish Israeli imprisonment of their soldiers by driving tanks into
Israeli territory. Palestinian leaders would be able to enforce curfews
and checkpoints in Israeli territory. They would be able to demolish
houses. They would be able to prevent Israel from trading with other
countries. But Palestinians have no such power. Without power, how
can Palestinian leaders be responsible?

The kidnapping of that Israeli soldier is tragic, but it's not a
cause for what Israel is doing. Even if Israel manages to save the
soldier, they will wind up doing harm to many people who had nothing
to do with the kidnapping -- whose only offense is the one thing
they cannot change: that they're Palestinian. And Israel will have
demonstrated to the world how brutal and how racist (or substitute
your word) they are. The former will result in more struggle against
them, regardless of how desperate or vain. The latter should result
in universal opprobrium, but probably won't: if it did, it should
have happened already, but Israel's leaders feel secure enough that
they don't feel any need to worry about world opinion.

Still, why does Israel behave like this? The obvious answer is
that they think they're winning, that it's only a matter of time
before the Palestinians have to give up. Either the Palestinians
fight or surrender. If they fight, they give Israel an excuse to
crush them. If they don't, Israel has no need to recognize them.
Winning matters to Israel because it saves them from looking back
at what they've done and what they've become. But winning is a
rut, one you're stuck in until that dread moment in the future
when it ends. Losing WWII was the best thing that ever happened
to Japan and Germany. Had they not lost they'd still be fighting.
Having lost, they've prospered as normal nations, unable to do
anything but get along with their neighbors. Losing Vietnam was
the best thing for the US; otherwise we'd still be in the middle
of that fight. Winning WWII set the US and the Soviet Union up
to struggle further, bringing us all to the brink of catastrophe.
And the US has been even more deranged ever since we thought we
won that Cold War.

Israel won't change, and therefore won't free its people from
the prison of racism (or whatever) and militarism, until it loses.
Nothing the Palestinians can do can effect this change. The only
hope is that world opinion, including American opinion, starts
to recognize that Israel's perpetual collective punishment of the
Palestinians is a real problem -- is nothing less than an attack
on world civility. Then maybe Israel will realize that such acts
have consequences for Israelis too. Then maybe Israel will change
its behavior to lessen the struggle instead of intensifying it.
Then maybe we can reach some compromise that lets all parties get
on with their lives in peace.

So the only good that can possibly come out of Israel's latest
escalation of their prickly little war with Occupied Palestine would
be for world opinion to turn on them, to denounce them without
equivocation for increasing the strife, to deny any of their
excuses. Because what we know from long and painful experience
is that collective punishment in any possible guise -- racism,
colonialism, Nazism -- cannot be excused.

Kathy's Mural Is Done

The Dias de los Muertos mural at 25th and Arkansas in Wichita KS
has been completed. My sister, Kathy Hull, designed the mural and
directed its painting, which involved doing an awful lot of it
herself. It's on the side of a laundromat which previously had
been tagged repeatedly with graffiti. The building owner will host
a reception to officially unveil it this Friday, June 30, 7-9 pm.
Here's a picture, cropped and scaled down, a little dark -- shot
with shade cover, a little off-center.

Will try to get some better pictures. Meanwhile, a larger image
is here.

Against Inheritance

The evening news last night was dominated by the announcement that
Warren Buffett would donate $31 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation. One newscaster was clearly flabbergasted, wondering whether
viewers have any idea how much money that is. Well, sure, I do. That's
what about four months worth of Bush war in Iraq costs, using cash
accounting -- factor in asset losses and liabilities incurred and you
probably couldn't get two months of war for it. Still, that comparison
reflects more on Bush than on Buffett. But let's keep that contrast in
mind. America's two richest guys, Buffett and Gates, have committed
$60-plus billion to charity this year -- admittedly their charity, and
admittedly I don't care for Gates at all -- at the same time Bush's crew
are trying to kill off federal estate and gift taxes. Most of America's
best-known foundations -- Rockefeller, Ford, Pew -- were established
long ago, as tax dodges back when estate taxes had some teeth to them.
Gates and Buffett don't need such shelters. They could just as well
pass their fortunes on to untold generations of Richard Mellon Scaifes.
But Buffett keeps arguing that inheritance is un-American -- that says
something about Bush, doesn't it?

On the other hand, this movement of at least some of the ultra-rich
toward charity -- Ted Turner and George Soros are two more names that
come to mind -- dovetails nicely with the right-wing destruction of
government-funded safety nets. One reason the Gates Foundation looms
so large is that the US government itself has shrunk so small. Added
bonus is that it argues that all that untaxed wealth shift to the
rich just helps fund philanthropies. The problems with this should
be obvious: concentrating wealth concentrates political power in
private hands, free from democratic determination of public needs.
Once in a rare while, that may result in something good -- such as
the Rockefeller Foundation's work to control hookworm. But as policy
it is an excuse for ignoring problems, for doing nothing, in large
part because it abdicates responsibility. Private investors do well
at scratching their own itches, but counting on them to take care
of others has never worked out. The rich got that way by working to
their own benefit, and few feel any obligation to pay anything back.

The campaign against estate taxes (the "death tax") has succeeded
largely because few people seem to understand what's at stake. It has
little if anything to do with balancing the budget, or even with how
reducing estate taxes favors the rich. The core issue is whether the
rich should have to earn their wealth. In other words, it's whether
the rich in any way deserve their wealth. Clearly, different people
produce different amounts, and most produce more when fortune favors
it, so the variation in labor productivity is one source of inequal
wealth. Within some limits, this seems fair and just: if you want
more, produce more. But inheritance works against the value of labor
by providing an unearned path to wealth. There's no real way to keep
children from being favored by their parents, but establishing a
high estate tax starts to establish the principle: that everyone
should have the same opportunities, that labor matters, that we
recognize that inheritance-driven aristocracy is inherently corrupt
and unjust. Bush is just one of many examples.

Music: Current count 12020 [12000] rated (+20), 919 [890] unrated (+29).
Jazz prospecting almost all week, with a couple of days starting to cope
with July Recycled Goods column. Still indecisive about many prospects,
and still haven't got back to the replay queue. Unrated count took a big
hike, partly because I finally got around to cataloguing a big box from
Verve. I've been over 900 before, but it's been quite a while: probably
after one of those long trips with a lot of record stores, or a big
closeout here. This time I can't blame my tendency to scavenger: I'm
just falling behind. Makes me feel bad about asking for stuff. No, not
bad per se, just kind of helpless. Recycled should be done mid-week,
then I hit the replays and try to close out Jazz CG. That's the plan.
Should knock at least 30 down next week. If the unrated count still
goes up, I'm fucked.

Johnny Cash: Personal File (1973-82 [2006],
Columbia/Legacy, 2CD):
The title was a label on a box of tapes left over in Cash's studio,
mostly from July 1973, with a few later additions. Nothing more than
voice and guitar, some original songs but mostly covers -- one a
spoken poem, several stories. In form and content they anticipate
Cash's endgame, where Rick Rubin pitched songs for no more reason
than he wanted to hear Cash sing, and Cash kept singing even past
his point of no return because in the end that's all he really was.
These cuts have none of the unsteadiness or frailty or heroism of
the later records. They are the fruits of middle age, confident
both in experience and skills. The compilers split them up into
one secular and one sacred side. The latter falters early on, but
closes with three great songs so definitively I forget who made
them famous. A-

Dexter Gordon: Bopland (1947 [2004], Savoy Jazz, 3CD):
This July 6, 1947 concert in Los Angeles is remembered as a landmark
in the creation of bebop, but it could just as mark one the last days
of jazz as popular music. The Elks Club was a dance hall, large enough
for two thousand. This particular night featured groups led by Howard
McGhee, Al Killian, and Wild Bill Moore, with only McGhee well enough
known to make the front cover. His group was retrospectively dubbed
the Bopland Boys, and they are the names you're likely to know: Dexter
Gordon, Wardell Gray, Sonny Criss, Trummy Young, Hampton Hawes, Barney
Kessel, Red Callender, Roy Porter. The concert is famous for the 18:08
joust between Gordon and Gray called "The Hunt." It's easily the high
point here, but placed in the whole night's context I'm less struck by
its bop moves than the pitched rhythm and blues rumble that resonates
throughout the crowd. For one thing, it reminds me that at first bop
had more to do with showboating for the fans than driving them away
through artistic overreach. All these guys meant to please, and Dexter
merely had more tricks up his sleeve than a blues honker like Moore.
Studio records from the period were necessarily short, so it's only
in these rarely recorded live concerts that we get a chance to listen
to the musicians stretch out. Some of those are legendary: Ellington
at Fargo and Newport, Gillespie at Pleyel, the '44 and '46 Jazz at the
Philharmonics. This isn't as consistent, but it peaks at that level.
A-

Seu Jorge: Cru (2005, Wrasse): From Brazil's favelas
to the silver screen -- The Life Aquatic and City of God
are two movie credits -- Jorge's "raw" can just as well be cute or
clever, a soft touch not uncommon even in the hardest corners of his
country; often just sung over his own crudely strummed guitar, he can
win you over one moment, then lose you the next. B

Kronos Quartet and Asha Bhosle: You've Stolen My Heart:
Songs From R.D. Burman's Bollywood (2005, Nonesuch): Have
string quartet, will travel, this time through the trove of Bengali
film music, with Bollywood chanteuse Asha Bhosle; when in doubt,
the strings lean toward tango, but Zakir Hussain's tabla and Wu
Man's pipa strive to keep the course correct for Asia; as with
the Quartet's Pieces of Africa, the result is neither here
nor there, which is probably the point. B+(***)

Yungchen Lhamo: Ama (2005 [2006], Real World):
From Tibet, she crossed the Himalayas to India in 1989, refined
her devotional folk music in refugee camps, then worked her way
to Australia and finally New York; haunting vocals with simple
string backup and tasteful concessions to the West, like Annie
Lennox taking a verse in English. B+(**)

Robert Lockwood Jr.: The Complete Trix Recordings
(1974-77 [2003], Savoy Jazz, 2CD): Despite his opportunistic Jr. in
honor of Robert Johnson, this Robert never sold his soul at the
crossroads and never found hell hounds on his tail; his blues was
an easy way to make a hard living, and is most pleasing when he
keeps it plain -- even the sax can be too much. B

Jazz Prospecting (CG #10, Part 8)

I've filed blog pieces every day for at least two weeks. I suspect
that's one reason why I neither got enough prospecting done this week
to keep up nor, perhaps more importantly, never got back to the replay
queue. As the week closed I needed to switch gears and work on the
July Recycled Goods column. Still have several more days to work on
that, and I usually try to sustain my momentum to get a leg up on the
following month. So I don't expect much prospecting next week. But
by the following week I'll be trying to close this column out. Still
not real clear how it shapes up.

Maurice El Médioni Meets Roberto Rodriguez: Descarga Oriental:
The New York Sessions (2005 [2006], Piranha): Superficially,
this is Cuban music sung in French and maybe a little Arabic, the
meeting of an Algerian pianist (Jewish, based in France, a figure of
some importance in the development of raï) and a Cuban percussionist
(Judeophile, passed through Miami to New York, where he records for
Tzadik's Radical Jewish Culture series). El Médioni traces his family
tree back to al-Andalus, where Jews and Arabs created Spanish music,
roots that not even Torquemada could stamp out. That Arab-Sephardic
music lay at the base of Cuban music, augmented by much from Africa,
waiting to be unpacked in meetings such as this inspired jam session.
A-

Ab Baars Quartet: Kinda Dukish (2005, Wig): The
idea here is to take Ellington songs and rough them up, unhinge
them, turn them into free-ish improvs. "Caravan" becomes "Kinda
Caravan"; "Jack the Bear" becomes "Kinda Jack." Baars, a mainstay
of the Dutch avant-garde, plays clarinet and tenor sax. The others
play trombone, bass and drums. First impression is that it's too
ragged to be real, but then it's not the sort of thing you'd
expect to reveal itself all at once.
[B+(*)]

Available Jelly: Bilbao Song (2004 [2005], Ramboy):
This is at least the fifth album since 1984 for this group. Michael
Moore is the constant and mainstay, with cornetist Eric Boeren also
contributing songs. The group's signature is many horns playing in
free orbits. Four is the number this time, with Toby Delius joining
Moore on various saxes and clarinest while Wolter Wierbos adds his
trombone to Boeren's cornet. Frequent Moore collaborators Ernst
Glerum and Michael Vatcher fill out the group, on bass and drums
respectively. Too much going on here for me to get good focus on
it yet, but I especially like the parts where the rhythm coheres,
and the feature for Wierbos.
[B+(**)]

Michael Moore Quintet: Osiris (2005 [2006], Ramboy):
Only one previous Moore Quintet album in the catalog, cut in 1988 with
a crew of Americans who read like an all-star team right now (Robertson,
Hersch, Helias, Hemingway). This has the same instrument lineup, but
mostly Dutch musicians -- trumpeter Eric Vloeimans is the best known,
followed by pianist Marc van Roon. The lineup suggests hard bop, but
this plays more like chamber music, mostly soft and silky. Not sure
what to make of it.
[B]

Pete Malinverni: Joyful! (2005 [2006], ArtistShare):
A gospel album, built around the pianist's quintet with Steve Wilson
and Joe Magnarelli doing notable work on alto sax and trumpet, but
dominated by a full-blown choir, the Devoe Street Baptist Church
Choir, and narrated by the Reverend Frederick C. Ernette, Sr. As long
as it stays traditional its joy packs a punch, but when the words stray
from the old themes, you start to wonder. Or I do, anyway. Like is it
true that Christians have gotten so much dumber even in my own lifetime?
Or is it just that what used to be personal faith has become a social
and political plague? Hard to see the joy in all that.
B

Buck Hill: Relax (2006, Severn): Haven't heard from
the longtime DC mailman for a while -- he recorded for Steeplechase
from 1978-83 and later for Muse from 1989-92, but only has a 2000
live album since then. Pushing 80, he's still sounding pretty good:
a broad tone on tenor sax, a fondness for blues licks, a typical
soul jazz backup group with organ and guitar. Nothing anyway near
remarkable here, but it welcomes us back home.
B+(**)

Chris Cheek: Blues Cruise (2005 [2006], Fresh Sound
New Talent): Most of the new talent debuts on Jordi Pujol's showcase
label move on to other venues -- like Brad Mehldau, who returns with
his piano trio here -- or they fade back into obscurity. Saxophonist
Cheek has hung on for six albums now. (His website claims four -- he
omits two live albums co-credited to Ethan Iverson, Ben Street and
Jorge Rossy, but normally filed under his first-appearing name.) The
new one is so relaxed he might have forgotten it too. But the group
works at a high level of professionalism, and the results are
unfailingly pleasant, maybe better. I guess if you're on a cruise,
the last thing you want is for someone to rock the boat.
[B+(**)]

Klemens Marktl: Ocean Avenue (2004 [2006], Fresh
Sound New Talent): Young drummer from Austria. Followed his studies
from there to Holland and New York. His resume cites a long list of
drummers he's studied under, headed by Lewis Nash -- a mainstream
master who rarely stands out but invariably makes whoever he's
playing with sound better. Marktl doesn't stand out either, but
he's got a good pianist here in Aaron Goldberg and he's got Chris
Cheek on his various saxes, and they work together to create a
seamless piece of postmodern cool.
B+(**)

Samo Salamon Quartet: Two Hours (2004 [2006], Fresh
Sound New Talent): The leader is a young guitarist from Slovenia,
who worked his way through Austria to New York where he moved in
with John Scofield. Doesn't sound much like Scofield, nor like Bill
Frisell -- to whom he dedicates a tune -- nor to anyone else I can
think of. But then I'm having some trouble hearing him around the
other three-quarters of his quartet. That's because they're, well,
it should suffice just to list them: Tony Malaby, Mark Helias, Tom
Rainey. Awesome was the word I was fumbling with, but I need to
sort this out further before I go that far.
[B+(***)]

Ramón Díaz: Diàleg (2005 [2006], Fresh Sound New
Talent): When I see a sax-trumpet-piano-bass-drums quintet, I figure
it's either a throwback to the classic hard bop lineup of 1955-65
or some slick postmodernist with a bag of advanced harmonic ideas
up his sleeve. This one is neither, exactly. Unlike the harmonists,
the instruments are separated out, each to its own calling -- for
the piano that means slipping in a little Horace Silver or Bobby
Timmons boogie and blues. But it's not stuck in a time warp either:
less a throwback than a straightforward evolution forward. Never
heard of any of these guys, but everyone pulls their own. Led by
the drummer: guess we should call him the Art Blakey of the Canary
Islands.
A-

Junk Box: Fragment (2004 [2006], Libra): Another
Satoko Fujii album -- she's working at a rate that rivals Vandermark
or Braxton back in the '70s. This one is a trio with sidekick Natsuki
Tamura on trumpet and John Hollenbeck on drums, but the pianist wrote
all the pieces. Most are pounded out in thick chords, with trumpet
for tension and growl -- the drummer is there mainly for accents.
Nothing lets up even when they slow down.
[B+(***)]

NOW Orchestra & Marilyn Crispell: Pola (2004 [2005],
Victo): NOW stands for New Orchestra Workshop, not that that helps much.
Based in Vancouver under baritone saxophonist Coat Cooke's artistic
direction, they've been around in some form or other since 1987 (or
maybe 1977). With 14 musicians, including a vocalist used mostly for
sound, they're a large, potentially ungainly, group, but I'm more struck
by how they pull together. Their recordings seem to be tied to guest
opportunities -- Barry Guy, René Lussier, George Lewis -- and Crispell
fills that role here. In fact, she's worth concentrating on. Especially
if you thought her ECM albums have been a bit tame lately, she gets
plenty rough here.
[B+(***)]

Oliver Lake/Reggie Workman/Andrew Cyrille: Trio 3: Time
Being (2005 [2006], Intakt): Another album cover parsing
problem: is Trio 3 the group name, or part of the title, or just
some flotsam collecting on the spine? The musicians' names appear
as well: they're recognizable as individuals and self-explanatory
in combination. First impression is: pretty much what you'd expect.
If Lake doesn't overwhelm, that's because the others are constantly
on his case.
[B+(***)]

Pierre Favre/Yang Jing: Two in One (2005 [2006],
Intakt): Yang Jing plays pipa, a Chinese lute-type instrument with
four strings. She was a soloist in the Chinese National Orchestra
for twelve years -- no doubt she knows her stuff, but I'm having
some trouble following it. Favre is a veteran drummer, adept in
avant-garde contexts but also a long-time dabbler in exotica. His
contribution is less clear here. I suspect that this will wind up
in the category of sound environments, but it's probably worth a
closer listen.
[B]

Harry Miller's Isipingo: Which Way Now (1975 [2006],
Cuneiform): A South African bassist who moved to England in the early
'60s, Miller was the glue that held together an unusual juncture of
English avant-gardists and South African exiles. Here the former are
Keith Tippett, Mike Osborne and Nick Evans, while Mongezi Feza and
Louis Moholo fill out the band. In other groups, the range expands
to Elton Dean on one end and Dudu Pukwana on the other -- Miller
plays on the latter's In the Townships, the quintessential
township jazz album. Despite founding Ogun Records, very little of
Miller's own work came out before he died in 1983. A couple years
ago Cuneiform delved into this circle and recovered some old radio
tapes of Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath, where township
jive and avant-thrash seemed to be locked in a death struggle. In
this group they tend to cancel each other out, resulting in a
surprisingly mainstream flow. Still, it has much of interest --
especially Tippett's piano and Feza's trumpet.
[B+(***)]

The Ed Palermo Big Band: Take Your Clothes Off When You
Dance (2006, Cuneiform): I put this on without looking at
who, what, when or how -- just figured the day was about done, so
I'd get a taste of it before I went to bed and play it again in
the morning. Loud and brassy at first, then it gets stranger, then
I notice rockish guitar, then some guy comes on and sings absolute
crap. Impatiently waiting for it to end, and no it don't get no
second chance in the morning -- no telling how low the grade can
really go, I'll just take a guess and be done with it. Record's
over, so I pick it up and proceed with my paperwork. Turns out
there's a simple reason why it's so awful: all compositions by
Frank Zappa. So it's not just crap; it's secondhand crap.
C-

Soft Machine: Grides (1970-71 [2006], Cuneiform,
CD+DVD): Back in the '70s I had most of Soft Machine's studio albums,
but I don't recall them very well. First one (or maybe two) was led
by Kevin Ayers, so they were mostly short, amusing songs, things
like "Joy of a Toy" and "Plus Belle Qu'une Poubelle." Third
was a double-LP with Ayers gone and the four remaining musicians
each doing one side-long song, but the only side I ever played much
was Robert Wyatt's spacey, loopy "The Moon in June." The remaining
albums, Fourth through Seven, have become a blur --
all I recall is noodling synth pop instrumentals, sublimation into
the machine. Somewhere along that series drummer-vocalist Wyatt
fell out a window and was paralyzed from the waist down. He bounced
back with a cover of "I'm a Believer" and followed it up with a
couple of brilliant albums -- Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard
is one of my all-time favorites; also notable are his vocals on
Michael Mantler's The Hapless Child and Nick Mason's
Fictitious Sports (actually an undercover Carla Bley album) --
and many more idiosyncratic ones. Saxophonist Elton Dean went on to
establish a reputation in avant-garde jazz before he died last year --
have only heard a couple of his records, so he remains a project. Don't
know what happened to Hugh Hopper or Mike Ratledge -- presumably the
main guys behind the blur. The band broke up in 1976. Recently, quite
a few of their live tapes have appeared, but this Amsterdam concert
is the only one I've heard. It was recorded in 1970, which locates it
between Third and Fourth. It remains predictably rockish,
especially in Wyatt's drumming, but also in the keyboards and bass.
Still, Ratledge manages to vary the keyboards enough to keep interest
as well as momentum, and thereby provides a dandy springboard for
Dean to break loose, which he does, raising the temperature throughout
the show. Package also includes a DVD, which I haven't seen yet, or
maybe ever. Priced extra for it too, which is a shame. Wonder what
else I've missed.
A-

Mujician: There's No Going Back Now (2005 [2006],
Cuneiform): This group dates back to 1988, with seven albums now.
Pianist Keith Tippett and saxophonist Paul Dunmall are prolific in
their own rights, especially Dunmall. Paul Rogers plays a 7-string
bass that looks like a monstrous lute. Tony Levin is the drummer.
There's one piece here, long, untitled, evidently made up on the
spot. Strikes me as underrecorded and/or underdeveloped -- fades
out in at least one moment that strikes me as indecision -- but
parts are interesting enough to demand further play.
[B+(*)]

Marc Cary: Focus (2006, Motema Music): When I looked
at Cary's website, the emphasis was on his Fender Rhodes work and the
music playing was a cut above the usual smooth jazz jive. Digging
around I found out that he has a couple of groups called Rhodes Ahead
and Indigenous People -- his heritage is part Native American -- and
that he produces dance music under the name Marco Polo. But this is
an acoustic piano trio, not far out of the postbop mainstream, except
it's faster and louder than usual, and drummer Sameer Gupta works in
a little tabla. Also found out he worked his way through Betty Carter's
boot camp. Also his side credits include two albums for Abraham Burton
that blew me away. Still open on this one.
[B+(**)]

Larry Vuckovich Trio: Street Scene (2005 [2006],
Tetrachord): Pianist, born Yugoslavia 1936, moved to US in 1951,
settled in San Francisco, studied under Vince Guaraldi, worked
for Cal Tjader, spent a good deal of time as the house pianist at
the Keystone Korner, worked in New York for much of the '90s, is
now back in California. I know all those things because the guy
wouldn't try to bullshit anyone. His motto is "straight ahead,"
and that's how he plays it. This sounds like a piano trio ought
to sound like: the slow ones articulate, the fast ones swing, a
hint of blues when called for. He does cheat a bit by bringing
in Hector Lugo's congas for extra percussion on four numbers, but
they slip by without incident. Doesn't do any of the Balkan folk
stuff he's most famous for.
B+(***)

Susi Hyldgaard: Blush (2004 [2006], Enja/Justin
Time): Danish singer with four albums. Sings in English. Has no
jazz moves that I can recognize, nor any rock moves, so this album
feels rather sedentary. She plays piano. Some cuts have bass and
drums; others strings and/or vocal backup. Two cuts are remixes.
The beats on the last one help.
C+

Ray Barretto: Standards Rican-ditioned (2005 [2006],
Zoho): According to the notes, all but one track had been completed
before Barretto died in January. That track has a scat vocal marking
where he intended to add a congo solo, as well as some overdubbed
conga by his son Chris. It feels more unfinished than that, but I
have no real sense of Barretto's career work -- no doubt a major
shortfall in my own learning. The pianist-arranger I know somewhat
better, and it turns out that he too has passed from the scene: so
this may serve as a double remembrance. Hilton Ruiz is the steady
center here. Maybe too steady, but it wasn't meant to be his show.
B+(*)

Harri Stojka: A Tribute to Gypsy Swing (2004 [2006],
Zoho): A set of fast-paced guitar-heavy instrumentals, more gypsy
than swing, but "Swanee River" is neither. Occasional references
to Django Reinhardt and four cuts with violin don't make this the
Hot Club, even out here in Cowtown.
B-

Carla White: A Voice in the Night (2005 [2006],
Bright Moon): Singer. Been around a while, with eight albums going
back to 1983. Open, breathy, straightforward voice; not all that
jazzy, but she sings with authority, maintaining her presence on
the slow ones. Has a complimentary set of musicians here, with
John Hart's guitar and Claudio Roditi's trumpet and flugelhorn
always welcome.
B+(**)

The Spy Who Came In From the Cold?

A while back I had the idea of doing a blog entry on books I had
no intention of ever reading. There are many categories of such books:
books by morons and/or well-meaning fools; books that pimp nonsense;
books on topics that strike me as unimportant -- terrorist threats
and motives are a prime example; books that seem unlikely to add much
to what I already know; first-person books by figure more likely to
cover up than reveal -- I would like to know what Paul Bremer was
thinking, but not enough to try reconstructing it from his own memoir;
popularizations and trivializations. There are also issues of priority:
I'm a slow reader and have trouble finding the time, so I need to pick
and choose. I also prefer paperbacks to hardcovers -- cost, of course,
but also convenience and storage -- so postponed is an option. Tony
Judt's Postwar is one I want to read but can wait a few months
on. George Packer's The Assassins' Gate has slipped into that
category, although it started out in the morons and fools class.

I hadn't put Robert Kaplan's Imperial Grunts on the "no read"
list, although he has serious conceptual and analytic problems, and his
topic -- travels with America's imperial foot soldiers -- is certain to
bring out the worst in him. But I have read all of his previous books,
except for the recent and paperback-postponed Mediterranean Winter
(now out but not yet purchased), and generally found him useful. My
take on him is that he provides a useful set of eyes on the ground in
places rarely reported, has skill at distilling relevant history, and
is quite readable. On the other hand, his attraction to war and empire
is dangerous: whenever he breaks out of his narrative with a line about
"that got me to thinking" you know he's gonna take a dump. His short
essay books, The Coming Anarchy and Warrior Politics,
are primarily in that mode. The other books I like least are the ones
where is he is most intimately involved with soldiers: Soldiers of
God, his Valentine to the Afghan mujahideen, and Surrender or
Starve, his cri de coeur for US intervention in Ethiopia. Chances
are that Imperial Grunts combines the worst of both, but even
so it is no doubt well written and likely to shed light on a subject
I don't know much about, nor much care for: the military mind.

However, I've deprioritized Kaplan's book a bit further after
reading Tom Bissell's long, furious
assault
not just on Imperial Grunts but on the entire Kaplan oeuvre.
To be fair, there is something personal about this spat. Bissell wrote
Chasing the Sea, a book about his travels in Uzbekistan, so he
has some firsthand basis for checking on Kaplan's travels and history.
But he also has added incentive: the Publishers Weekly review of his
book starts by rolling Bissell and Kaplan into the same bag: "The format
of the ensuing travelogue-cum-history lesson resembles that of itinerant
political commentators like Robert Kaplan, right down to the repulsively
exotic cuisine (e.g., boiled lamb's head) and digressionary mini-essays
on the history of European imperialism in Central Asia." But while some
of what Bissell says is specious -- e.g., nitpicking complaints about
Kaplan's writing style -- he does land a few punches. I don't dislike
An Empire Wilderness as much as Bissell does -- it's certainly
not "even worse" than Warrior Politics, because at least he
travels and sees and describes real things there instead of merely
contemplating the metaphysics of world salvation through world war.
And I dislike the early journalism far more -- Bissell, perhaps due
to his own expertise in the wreckage of the Soviet empire, seems to
go along with anti-communist dogma too readily. But his examples of
Kaplan's casual, everyday bigotry are on the mark. Also important
is how Bissell draws out the contradictions between Kaplan's class
bitterness and current exalted status as neocon policy wonk. No
doubt he's also right about Kaplan's abuse of literature, but
that's something I've always been able to skip over.

Lots of good lines in this long piece, but the following quote
stands out:

Kaplan once believed that something called "amoral self-interest"
should be the defining aspect of American foreign policy. His hope for
the Clinton administration was that it could "condense" a
justification for Balkan intervention "into folksy shorthand," because
"speaking and writing for an elite audience is not enough." Robert
D. Kaplan, meet George W. Bush. The writer who could once argue that
"the world is too vast and its problems too complicated for it to be
stabilized by American authority," has found his leader in a man who
in the 2000 presidential debates proclaimed that the job of the
military was "to fight and win war," not toil as "nation builders."
Kaplan is said to have briefed President Bush in 2001, and today finds
these protean gentlemen in a surlier and far more interventionist
mood. They have fused an apparent personal fondness for strutting
machismo with a fetishized idea of simplicity's value. Both have
willed into unsteady reality extremely forced senses of personal
identification with the common American, whose drooling need for that
which is clear and cut trumps all other moral and political
considerations. Bush has gone from an isolationist to an
interventionist minus the crucial intermediary stage wherein he
actually became interested in other places. Kaplan has traveled from
the belief that America should only "insert troops where overwhelming
moral considerations crosshatch with strategic ones" to arguing that
"September 11 had given the U.S. military the justification to go out
scouting for trouble, and at the same time to do some good," seemingly
without understanding that he has even changed. Doubtless both men
would sit any skeptic down and soberly explain that September 11
changed everything. What September 11 changed, however, was not the
world itself but their understanding of America's role in the
world. For President Bush and Robert D. Kaplan, September 11 primarily
means never having to say you're sorry.

One more quote that needs to be saved here is the leader from
George F. Kennan's Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin,
originally published in 1961, and damned prophetic:

[A]n embattled democracy . . . soon becomes the victim of its own
war propaganda. It then tends to attach to its own cause an absolute
value which distorts its own vision on everything else. Its enemy
becomes the embodiment of all evil. Its own side, on the other hand,
is the center of all virtue.

It should be noted that Kennan's comment is not just prescient
observation. It's also painfully learned experience. Kennan more
than anyone else was the founder of the anti-Soviet propaganda
that drove the Cold War to the brink of global destruction. That
wasn't exactly what he had in mind, but that can be what happens
when one writes to flatter rather than to oppose power. Kaplan's
limited value was as an outsider, a free agent on the fringes of
the world. But his fault is that he reveres power, and the closer
he gets to it the more dangerous he becomes. Still, I've always
wondered whether he really was a free agent. Born in the US, he
migrated to Israel to serve in the IDF. His relationship with the
US military goes back at last as far as An Empire Wilderness,
which starts with him consulting at Ft. Leavenworth. In another
book he drops by an old friend's house in Pakistan: Hamid Karzai.
Even as a free agent he keeps suspicious company.

Why Can't We Be Friends?

This item from the Wichita Eagle's page one non-news section caught
me a bit by surprise. It's by Ely Portillo, called "Why are we losing
friends?":

Americans, who shocked pollsters in 1985 when they said they had
only three close friends, today say they have just two. And the number
who say they have no one to discuss important matters with has doubled
to 1 in 4, according to a nationwide survey to be released today.

It found that men and women of every race, age and education level
reported fewer intimate friends than the same survey turned up in
1985. Their remaining confidants were more ikely to be members of
their nuclear family than in 1985, according to the study, but
intimacy within families was down, too. The findings are reported in
the June issue of the American Sociological Review.

Weaker bonds of friendship, which other studies affirm, have
far-reaching effects. Among them: fewer people to turn to for help in
crises such as Hurricane Katrina, fewer watchdogs to deter
neighborhood crime, fewer visitors for hospital patients and fewer
participants in community groups. The decline, which was greatest in
estimates of the number of friends outside the family, also puts added
pressure on spouses, families and counselors.

Further down they speculated a bit on reasons:

One explanation for friendship's decline is that adults are working
longer hours and socializing less. That includes women, who when they
were homemaking tended to have strong community networks. In addition,
commutes are longer, and TV viewing and computer use are up. Another
factor, Smith-Lovin said, may have been confusion among some of those
polled on how to count e-mail friendships.

As connections to neighbors and social clubs decline, Smith-Lovin
said, "From a social point of view it means you've got more people
isolated in a small network of people who are just like them."

This trend has been going on all my life. It's easy to think back
to the '50s and '60s when people actually worried about this -- you
don't hear much about alienation any more, but it was so much on the
mind that existentialism was invented to salve it. The arch trends
all date back to the '50s: the move to the suburbs, the envelopment
of passive entertainment, the time demands of careerism. More recent
is the notion of Quality Time, another time encroachment that has
come about as parenting has been shaped by the career ethic. Another
factor is fear: the threat of nuclear destruction dates back to the
'50s, but everyday fear of your neighbors has built up slowly over
time. (The current obsession with tracking "sex offenders" is a good
example.) But then fear may also be a consequence of having fewer
friends: as you lose the knack of making friends the rest of the
world becomes unapproachable.

The consequences of this for politics are almost too obvious to
point out. The more isolated and self-contained people's lives are,
the less appreciation people have for others not like them. Passive
intake of news and information leaves you vulnerable to manipulation --
especially the sort of manipulation that's become the stock and trade
of the new right in America. Most of this nonsense would fall apart at
the first dissent, but if you avoid anyone who might think differently,
you can wind up convincing yourself of any fool thing.

Aside from the politics, this isn't all for the worse. It is much
easier nowadays to sustain long-distance or virtual friendships.
Personal support networks seem to be less critical as long as there
are public resources -- government, other charities, businesses if
you can afford them -- that pick up the slack. (Of course, politics
hurt here, especially the Right's preference that one have to look
to the churches for relief.) Greater mobility makes it possible to
meet more people, so those who take advantage can experience a much
greater diversity of people. Such relationships are more superficial
than friendships, but they may satisfy the same needs.

The trick to progress is to recognize the costs as well as the
benefits, and find the proper balance. This scarcity of friends
indicates that we haven't yet found ways to balance its underlying
trends. The sour politics of the new right is likely to make this
worse, but it's less a cause than, more ominously, a consequence.

Clintonistas for Armageddon

One reason we're always stuck in a hopeless, hapless mess in foreign
policy is that the people the Democrats hire to staff those positions
are for all intents and purposes the same pinheaded warrior wannabes
as the ones the Republicans hire. Until today, the prime example was
Clinton's first CIA Director was James Woolsey -- not that his second
one, George Tenet, was much of an improvement. But now Woolsey has been
bumped aside by former Clinton Defense Secretary William Perry. What
moved Perry to the top of the heap was an op-ed piece Perry and Ashton
Carter, a Clinton DOD Undersecretary, wrote urging Bush to preemptively
fire cruise missiles at North Korea's missile test site.

Now, generally speaking, when you fire cruise missiles into a country,
that's what we call an act of war. That's what Bush did on the eve of
invading Iraq. Admittedly, the US has fired cruise missiles at a few
other countries without actually invading them, but they were countries
like the Sudan that didn't have any real defense posture, let alone the
ability to strike back. North Korea has some pretty serious missiles,
even discounting this untested one, and probably has a few fission bombs.
But even before all that, North Korea had a pretty daunting deterrent
to our attacking them: they have thousands of pieces of heavy artillery
aimed at South Korea, giving them almost instant ability to devastate
Seoul, a city of more than five million. They've had this capability
for quite some time. They haven't used it, or threatened to use it,
except defensively in response to US attack. It may be, as Perry and
Carter argue, that they would not use it even if the US blows up their
test missile site. But doing so would be a provocation far in excess
of anything the US has done to North Korea in more than fifty years.
Perry and Carter would take us into totally unchartered territory.

This whole argument is fraught with contradictions. Perry and
Carter are arguing that Kim Jong Il is crazy enough to attack the
US with nuclear weapons, but sane enough not to respond to the US
attacking his territory, destroying his technology, and killing
his people. So he would attack us without provocation but won't
hit back if we attack him first? Perry and Carter depend on Kim
understanding a whole set of special factors: that the US attack
would be limited, that South Korea and Japan -- the nations the
US is ostensibly in the region to protect -- should not be held
responsible, etc. They say, "Though war is unlikely, it would be
prudent for the United States to enhance deterrence by introducing
US air and naval forces into the region at the same time it made
its threat to strike the Taepodong [missile]." They don't consider
what happens to North Korea's deterrence if they let the US get
away with such a strike.

One skill that Americans in or near power seem to have lost, if
indeed they ever had, is the ability to imagine what other people
think. In Vienna just this week Bush snapped "that's absurd" when
asked about a poll of Europeans that found many consider the US a
threat to global stability. But Bush's threats against North Korea
are only slightly more subtle than what Perry and Carter argue for.
Does anybody wonder what this must look like to folks in Pyongyang?
They fought a war with the US which ground to a bloody stalemate
over fifty years ago. Eisenhower finally accepted that stalemate,
but the US never got over the affront. We've kept troops on their
border, and kept them locked down as much as possible, isolated
from the rest of the world, unable to trade, often on the brink of
starvation. Fifty years, and they still haven't buckled. Instead,
they dug in, paranoid, fearing the day when America resumes the war.
They haven't exactly helped themselves with their own embittered
aggressiveness. But America's default Korea policy has been locked
into autopilot. They've learned that the only way to even get our
attention is to rattle our cage, which nowadays -- look who's the
paranoid one now! -- can be dangerous.

Bush's position is that he refuses direct talks -- he insists on
a "six power" charade where he can tell China to tell North Korea
to dissolve itself and all China can do is shrug. Even Churchill
knew that there were worse things than "jaw jaw," but Bush seems
to be incapable of conceiving that North Korea represents actual
human beings. This inability to face them is only the first obstacle
on the way to defusing this problem. James Carroll is fond of quoting
Henry L. Stimson, the US Secretary of War both under Wilson and
Roosevelt: "The chief lesson I've learned in a long life is that the
only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him." Unlike Perry
and Carter, I don't think Bush wants to take on this fight at this
time. But as long as he's unwilling to start defusing the tinderbox
the nuts will keep pushing their reckless arguments.

Of course, another possibility is that Perry and Carter are just
running a bluff in collusion with the administration. You can think
of this as bad cop/good cop, i.e. an attempt to make Bush seem to
be reasonable. Or maybe it's a variant on Nixon's madman ploy, when
he scrambled America's nuclear bomber fleet to try to put pressure
on North Vietnam at some point in the Paris negotiations. Like the
Nixon incident, this is a case where we are the ones acting crazy,
and peace appears to depend on the relative sanity of the Communists.
It's a ploy that isn't embarrassing only because we've totally lost
the capacity to look at ourselves as others see us.

On the other hand, this just underscores that the Democrats'
reliance on establishment wonks like Perry and Carter, Woolsey, and
don't forget Madeleine (I wouldn't have been so stupid as to invade
Iraq, but now that we're there we can't afford to look like we're
losing) Albright and Dennis Ross and even Zbigniew Brzezinski (who
must be slipping because he's starting to make sense), means that
there has been no serious debate on US foreign policy since Henry
Wallace got run out of Truman's cabinet. With two war parties in
a two-party system, it's no wonder we have no peace.

Gavan McCormack's Target North Korea: Pushing North Korea to the
Brink of Nuclear Catastrophe (2004, Nation Books) provides a useful,
clear-eyed review of the relevant history up to the early "six power"
talks. The question of perspectives is addressed in this quote [pp.
159-160]:

From North Korea's perspective, the world is full of nuclear
hypocrisy. Nonnuclear countries are forced to bow to the great powers
that possess the bomb. While entry into the "nuclear club" earns the
respect of current club members, outsiders who attempt to join it are
threatened with annihilation. Washington demands that North Korea
disavow any nuclear plans (and substantially cut back on its
conventional forces), but the United States retains an actively
deployed arsenal of 7,650 nuclear warheads (most of them "strategic"
and far more powerful than the one used at Hiroshima) with a further
3,600 in reserve or awaiting dismantling. The U.S. has withdrawn from
the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, the Anti-Ballistic Millie
Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention, the International Criminal
Court, and the Kyoto Convention on Global Warming. It signals its
intent to pursue nuclear hegemony including the domination of space;
deploys as "conventional weapons" newly developed weapons of terror
and mass destruction including cluster bombs, "daisy cutters," and
depleted uranium-tipped shells; and is working to develop a new
generation fo nuclear "bunker buster" bombs and a space-based weapons
system, enabling it to target anyplace on earth. It proclaims its
right to assassinate or launch preemptive war against its enemies and
refuses to recognize the jurisdiction of any international court to
try its actions or those of its citizens. For three decades it has
ignored its obligations under Article 6 of the 1988 Non-Proliferation
Treaty to "pursue negotiations in good faith . . . to nuclear
disarmament" (and is therefore in "material breach" of the treaty),
while insisting that the others honor it strictly. None of this,
however, in the eyes of the U.S. is "roguish" or "evil." Pyongyang
sees the United States consistently placing itself above the law,
reserving to itself the right to employ violence, virtually without
restriction, in pursuit of its global interests, while labeling
"terroristic" those who oppose it.

Lots more background in that book, including a pretty harrowing
portrait of life in North Korea. It seems obvious that the way out
for the Korean people is through reconciliation and eventual reunion
with South Korea. There is political will to do that in South Korea,
but the US and Japan seem to prefer keeping the hostility and threat
level simmering. One should give some thought to the fact that the
only remaining Communist states are the ones the US has fought wars
against: North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, and China (which fought us in
Korea, although we've cut them a lot more slack, especially now that
they're bankrolling Bush's national debt). The persistence of US
antipathy towards North Korea indicates that we've never stopped
fighting the Cold War, even fifteen years after the Russians gave
up and got on with their lives. Indeed, just this week, Bush made
a trip to Hungary to gloat about how America stood up to the Soviet
threat. (The occasion was the 50th anniversary of Hungary's revolt,
which as all Hungarians know the US sensibly sidestepped, allowing
the Soviets to crush the opposition.) But then the Cold War wasn't
just about Soviet expansionism; it was perhaps more importantly
about the class struggle. The Soviets are no longer of interest,
but class war is still very much alive in the Bush administration.
It's the one they think they're winning.

Another source on the current Korea situation is Robert Koehler's
blog, The Marmot's Hole.
He follows the South Korean press, and has a number of interesting
posts on this. He figures that North Korea is indeed unlikely to
start a doomsday war over an attack on their missile, but that such
an attack would play very badly in South Korea -- it would make
clear how cavalierly we'd be willing to risk their lives for a
tiny boost to our own imagined security.

Recording the News

Sudden attack of actual news on page 3A of the Wichita Eagle today.
The big article was by Nancy A. Youssef, called "Recording the dead":

The death of civilians at the hands of U.S. troops has fueled the
insurgency in Iraq, according to a top-level U.S. military commander,
who said U.S. officials began keeping records of these deaths last
summer.

Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who as head of the Multi-National
Force-Iraq is the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, said the number of
civilian dead and wounded is an important measurement of how
effectively U.S. forces are interacting with the Iraqi people.

"We have people who were on the fence or supported us who in the
last two years or three years have in fact decided to strike out
against us. And you have to ask: Why is that? And I would argue in
many instances we are our own worst enemy," Chiarelli told Knight
Ridder.

Chiarelli said he reviews the figures daily. If fewer civiilians
are killed, "I think that will make our soldiers safer," Chiarelli
said.

U.S. officials previously have said they don't keep track of
civilian casualties, and Iraqi officials stopped releasing numbers of
U.S.-caused casualties after Knight Ridder reported in September 2004
that the Iraqi Ministry of Health had attributed more than twice as
many civilian deaths to the actions of U.S. forces than to "terrorist"
attacks during the period from June 2004 to September 2004.

Chiarelli declined to release the numbers, but he said that
U.S. soldiers are killing and injuring fewer Iraqi civilians this year
in "escalation of force" incidents at checkpoints and near convoys
than they did in July of last year, when officials first started
tracking the statistics.

One question this raises is whether casualties from US air strikes
are counted yet, and if so what the trend is there. Most reports are
that air strikes have escalated. Counting itself is significant; if
you don't bother to count, you're basically giving a green light to
the soldiers to do whatever they feel like. Also looks like they've
started to go beyond counting and actually investigate when and how
and why US soldiers kill civilians. This is still likely to be too
little, too late: from a PR standpoint, the counts and their details
are a lose-lose proposition. But this does show that the military
brass in the field are trying to get a handle on what they're doing
and what effect they're having.

Above that, the story was "U.S. removing equipment from Iraq":

The U.S. military has begun sending thousands of battered Humvees
and other war-torn equipment home as more Iraqi units join the fight
against insurgents and American units scheduled for Iraq duty have
their orders canceled.

In the past four months, the Army has tagged 7,000 Humvees and
17,000 other pieces of equipment to be shipped to the United States
and rebuilt.

[ . . . ]

Pentagon officials have said that the 132,000 U.S. troops in Iraq
could be reduced to about 100,000 by the end of the year, if security
doesn't further deteriorate.

[ . . . ]

"It is much harder to move equipment than it is to move people,"
said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute. "So if the Army is
increasing its movement of equipment out of the country, that may
signal that it expects fewer soldiers in Iraq six or 12 months from
now."

In other words, the military is working towards extricating itself
from Iraq even while the politicians insist on Staying the Course. One
can argue that a smaller US footprint will be better for security, and
Chiarelli's data should support that position.

The big story at the bottom of the page is titled "Bush defends
policies to European critics," but the picture here speaks louder: a
mass of protestors with four clearly legible signs in the foreground
with Bush's picture and the words "WORLD'S #1 TERRORIST."

And then there were small stories around the edge of the page:

"N. Korea wants to talk; U.S. doesn't"

"'Significant fighting' ahead in Afghanistan"

"Israeli missile misses Gaza target, hits house"

"Fires continue to scorch areas of the Southwest"

"Senate quashes increase in minimum wage"

"Data brokers describe methods"

The minimum wage vote was 52-46 in favor of a higher minimum wage,
but that wasn't enough to overcome the Republican fillibuster. Guess
the days when Republicans stood for up-and-down votes are over.

Yet Another Day in Iraq

Another day in Iraq brought more killings, including one of Saddam
Hussein's lawyers, more kidnappings, and more Americans charged with
murder. Those stories at least made the TV news. Of evident less
interest were a suicide bomber in Basra, US airstrikes in Baqubah
that killed 13, and "16 corpses in various parts of Iraq." Another
day.

Back in Congress Democrats divided over redeployment amendments
while the Republicans clung firm to their clichés. It continues to
dismay me that people whose business is debate can't seem to get
their minds around the core concepts here. Stay what course? Where
does that course go? Victory? Can you be a little more specific?
The Democrats need to be attacking the goals of the war, but they
can't do that because they've never been stated, and they've never
bothered to ask. Only once you know what they're selling can you
start a meaningful discussion of whether the price is worth paying.
Or whether the product is even attainable.

Still, what's most disturbing about the debate there isn't that
the Democrats are too confused or cowardly to challenge the war.
It's that the right is already setting antiwar critics up for the
fall when the war fails. It's like they know they lost this one, but
want to make sure nobody learns any lessons from their failure. In
this, as in the war itself, they're rerunning playbook from Vietnam.
It's sad to think we're going to have to go through all this time
and again just because nobody can see that empire works against the
interests of most Americans.

Still, confusion is rampant. Robert Dreyfus wrote a weird piece
called "Permanent War?" at TomDispatch, where he's changed his mind
and decided that the US can persevere in Iraq. This assumes three
things: that the US can continue to afford running 50-100k troops
there indefinitely; that US political opinion will tolerate this;
and that the Iraqi government will tolerate this. Each is a pretty
iffy proposition, and loss of any of the three would end the game.
He argues that we should go back to arguing the basic criminality
of the war, instead of betting on its failure. But it looks to me
like failure isn't a future proposition -- the war has already
failed in so many ways that its future prospects for turning even
worse are almost beside the point.

The real question looking ahead is whether we'll learn anything
from this folly. The fundamental nature of our political system
suggests not: the pro-war party will survive this war and agitate
for its return to power, while the antiwar movement always seems
to appear too late and amount to too little. War is an interest
group; peace is just something we enjoy when we can. The confusion
that the Democrats have is rooted in their well-conditioned nose
for servicing interest groups. This leads them to want to isolate
the fiasco in Iraq from their abiding enthusiasm for a smarter War
on Terror and their blind allegiance to Israel. Until they see how
the three are linked, parts of a cluster of other interests that
ultimately do them more harm than good, they won't be able to find
their way out.

Another Day in Iraq

Three small points about Iraq before something else happens there:

The Khalilzad Cable isn't the Pentagon Papers, as Helena Cobban
suggested. The Vietnam document was encyclopedic. This one is very
narrowly focused on the lives of a few Iraqis working for the US
propaganda outfit in Baghdad. However, it testifies very strongly
how hopeless the US occupation is in Iraq. This is true because,
as Malcolm Gladwell and Rudy Giuliani and God knows how many others
have argued, appearances send messages about what behavior is or is
not acceptable and proper under the circumstances. The fact that
American public affairs employees can't safely identify themselves
as such in public shows that the US has no credibility whatsoever
outside the Green Zone. None. It's gone. Once lost, credibility
is about as hard to regain as virginity.

Two US privates were captured in an attack on a roadblock,
hauled off. The US response was to send 8,000 troops out to search
for them. That may initially strike you as dedicated and sensitive,
but how should that strike the Iraqis, thousands of whom have been
kidnapped since the US occupation began? This only serves to show
once again the obscene difference between how much Americans value
their own lives versus how little they value Iraqi lives, and that's
the lesson most Iraqis will draw from this incident. The soldiers
were killed gruesomely, their remains left in a field booby-trapped
with bombs. Americans will remember how brutal and vicious Iraqis
can be, and act with that in mind. Meanwhile, the Jihadis have
found yet another way to drive the Americans crazy. Expect them
to do it again, and again.

Three US soldiers were charged with premeditated murder of
Iraqi detainees today -- further evidence that discipline is on
the verge of collapsing and the military is tearing itself apart.
One of the charges here was that one soldier threatened to kill
another for talking about the killings. This smells to me like
we're getting very close to a new round of fragging. Ann Coulter
has opened the subject, arguing that John Murtha should be fragged.
(A check of the Daou Report suggests that Right Blogistan is all
but obsessed with demonizing Murtha these days, so it's not just
her.) She got the whole dynamic wrong: the officers who got fragged
in Vietnam weren't the ones trying to get their troops home safely;
they were the ones who drove their troops into hopeless binds. That
includes anyone who thinks they can still salvage something from
this tragic mess.

Here's a project for someone: go back through all the predictions
people made about Iraq, Afghanistan, the whole War on Terrorism,
and see how they stack up against the actual history. You could
throw in Israel as well. I recall Dennis Ross talking about how
Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza would be a step for peace, at the
same time I was predicting that it was just being done to open up
a clear line of fire. Who called that one?

Grown Tired of That Good Fight

I wrote a little bit about Andrew O'Hehir's Salon review of Peter
Beinart's The Good Fight recently, but wasn't able to work in
what I found to be the most interesting bit of the review:

Recent polling data suggests that self-described liberals are far
more interested in ending the Iraq war than in pursuing al-Qaida, and
that a large proportion of Democrats now oppose not merely the Iraq
conflict but also the earlier invasion of Afghanistan. Many American
liberals, he concludes, "no longer see the war on terror as their
fight."

As one who opposed the US war in Afghanistan, and for that matter
any sort of extralegal -- an evasive euphemism for illegal -- pursuit
of Al Qaeda, I'm so used to being on the short side of the polling
stick there that I hadn't noticed such a change of opinion. In fact,
my own position has moderated to the point where I don't care much
one way or another whether or when the US pulls out of Afghanistan.
It's not that I've changed my mind, or that I see the US presence
as in any way benign. It's just that as problems go, this one has
been overwhelmed by the one it led to: Iraq.

It is certainly a healthy sign when rank and file Democrats come
to the realization that the War on Terror isn't a fight that works
for them in any way. It is a cover for many things -- not least a
class war at home. It's a misdirection scam: first they get you to
look in the distance, then they pick your pocket. If you complain,
they try to guilt trip you for not caring about women and children
on the far side of the world. Eventually you realize you've been
had. Why should you feel bad about women and children in Afghanistan
when they could care less about women and children here? Moreover,
it's not like what they're doing in your name over there actually
does any good. But you don't notice this sort of opinion shift
because it's not the sort of thing people talk about. You talk
about things you want to do, things you care about. Nobody makes
a point of talking about, well, I think I'll just get back to my
own life now.

Ahmed Rashid wrote a recent piece in The New York Review of Books
on the state of Afghanistan. Although there are positive stories
here and there, the bottom line is that reconstruction hasn't and
security isn't and neither seems likely to change any way but for
the worse. The Karzai government controls most of Kabul, but little
beyond; warlords operate with impunity throughout most of the country;
the Taliban controls all but the cities in the south and much of the
Pakistani border; the only real economy is based on opium. The US
has just started a new offensive to retake the southern provinces --
an admission that they failed to hold them the last time they took
them. This time isn't likely to work any better than last time: the
US forces are still much better at making enemies than vanquishing
them, let alone winning them over. More ominously, the Taliban backs
into havens in Pakistan, where they are too popularly ensconced to
be attacked -- even by Pakistan's central government. This reminds
us that the nightmare scenario wasn't just that Bush would get so
cocky over Afghanistan that he'd invade Iraq; bad as that proved to
be, the real nightmare is that fighting the Taliban might push their
ISI allies into seizing power in nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Rashid attributes much of the US failure to the US moving on to
Iraq -- a position that most Democrat wonks agree with. Iraq undercut
the effort in Afghanistan by drawing resources and focus away -- also
by setting a model that inspires and informs the Afghan resistance.
Still, Afghanistan would have been a tough project in any case. We
know very little about how to build robust economies and successful
civil societies in the underdeveloped world -- not that it's clear
that we've tried very hard. Bush's own disinterest in the subject
was made clear when he decried "nation building" when he ran for
office -- that he's engaged in it at all is only because he found
it useful for propaganda and cronyism. You can't point to any cases
where he's actually achieved much -- even in New Orleans following
Hurricane Katrina. But Afghanistan's problems run far deeper.

Thirty years ago, when the King was first deposed, Afghanistan
was one of the poorest, most backward countries on the face of the
earth. A series of coups led to establishment of a weak Communist
government, which caught the attention of the US security cabal,
spoiling for a revenge match against the Soviet Union. After the
US started supplying arms to anti-Communist Mujahedin, the Soviets
sent troops in to shore up the Kabul government. This led to greater
resistance and a massive escalation in arms shipped by the US via
Pakistan. The result was 22 years of internecine civil war, killing
hundreds of thousands, driving millions out of their homes. The
Taliban -- the word means students -- were mostly children who
grew up under this civil war, who learned nothing but a few slogans
from the Koran and how to kill their supposed enemies. The US never
cared one whit about Afghanistan. All we wanted was to humiliate
the Soviets, so once they withdrew, we withdrew, leaving nothing
but ruins and scars in our wake. This was the wound that nurtured
Al Qaeda, and 9/11 was our partial payback for what we had done
there.

Of course, that's not the only payback we've gotten. We've also
seen one armed intervention after another go sour. The idea that
we're spreading freedom or democracy or prosperity or fairness or
rights or anything positive is sorely lacking for examples. All
evidence suggests that old fashioned American isolationism would
do the world, and especially the Middle East, less harm, and us
as well.

Music: Current count 12000 [11972] rated (+28), 890 [891] unrated (-1).
The ratings database hit a round number milestone this week, although
like most such steady accumulations -- the deaths we bother to count
in Iraq come to mind -- this feels less like accomplishment than the
inevitable, unopposable march of time.

Louis Armstrong: Now You Has Jazz: Louis Armstrong at
M-G-M (1942-65 [1997], Rhino): Scattered songs, brief
instrumentals, some outtakes, from various soundtracks: Cabin
in the Sky (1943), The Strip (1951), Glory Alley
(1952), High Society (1956, with Bing Crosby), and When
the Boys Meet the Girls (1965). An interesting facet to the
Armstrong legend, even if not really the best way to check him
out. Good booklet; text by Will Friedwald.
B+(***)

Cream: Gold (1966-68 [2005], Polydor/Chronicles,
2CD): British power trio, the obvious link between blues-rock and
heavy metal, but Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce were closet jazzmen,
as inclined to improvise as to rock out, leaving Eric Clapton to
steady the ship; splitting their work into studio and live discs
seems like the right idea, but both run slightly thin. B+(***)

Fountains of Wayne: Out-of-State Plates (1996-2005,
Virgin, 2CD): Two new pop-rockers -- "The Girl I Can't Forget" is the
great one, evidently the flipside of "Maureen" -- plus a short decade
of throwaways, could almost have fit on one long disc but they're
generous enough to give you two short ones; not the first odds and
sods comp I've liked better than their studio fare -- for one thing
it's more varied, but also their trash is funnier than their cash.
A-

Ghostface Killah: Fishscale (2006, Def Jam):
Killah again. Probably his best ever, but looking back I find that
I wasn't nearly so impressed with his first two as Christgau was.
Same here, but it's clearer to me that a big part of the difference
is my inability to pay attention to the rhyme details. One piece
on getting whipped for being bad when he was a kid does touch a
nerve. There are probably more, and maybe someday I'll bother to
sort them out. No problem with the oft amazing music. A-

Stan Kenton: Jazz Profile (1945-67 [1997], Blue
Note): A one-disc compilation of Kenton's huge band work, covering
most of his career, most of his bands, more or less evenly (at least
up to 1961; only one cut after that). The band had some great musicians
and some pretty good arrangers, and parts of this explode the way
fireworks should; other parts sputter, fizzle, or just go boom. Two
vocals -- the one with June Christy is the keeper. I don't know my
way around his work very well, but I suspect that he's best approached
through original LPs, where the band is more consistent and flow is
more of a concern. But that's only a guess.
B

Mahala Raï Banda (1999-2004 [2005], Crammed Discs):
Electro-gypsy from the ghettos around Bucharest, roughly the same
general phenomena as Brazil's favela booty beats, but with accordion,
cymbalum and and lots of tuba-heavy brass. B+(**)

Larry McMurtry: Candyland (1992, Columbia): The
second album by a country singer who will always be known as his
famous novelist-screenwriter's son, not least because he displays
some of the same rough-hewn literacy. Somewhat underrecorded,
maybe even underwritten, but the title song stands out. B+(*)

Roy Nathanson: Fire at Keaton's Bar and Grill
(2000, Six Degrees): A concept album about the demise of a bar.
I haven't concentrated on the book closely enough to follow, but
I'm struck by how smoothly it flows. Charles Earland plays the
Mighty Burner, the central character. Deborah Harry plays Carol
Ann "Cups" -- "bartender to the masses, lover to the fortunate."
Elvis Costello is the key singer. You tend to forget that he
could have been a much better crooner than his father, had he
not become a rock star first. But he's over that now. B+(***)

Prince: 3121 (2006, Universal): Got this from the
library. Played it two times. It's been a long time since he's cut
a record I've really lived with and cared about, but it hasn't been
so long since the last time he cut an unquestionably good one --
e.g., 2002's Musicology. This is on the same level, maybe
an edge better, maybe not. As it stands, I don't know any of these
songs, but enjoy them all when they're playing. Some day I'll find
a cheap copy and play them some more. A-

Prince Far I: Heavy Manners: Anthology (1977-83
[2003], Trojan/Sanctuary, 2CD): Born Michael James Williams, a DJ
whose gravel voice declaimed rasta righteousness amidst torrents
of dub echo; Joe Gibbs produced his breakthrough, starting a run
that was stopped by a bullet six years later; this is exhaustive,
and in the end transcendent. A-

Public Enemy: Rebirth of a Nation (2006, Guerrilla
Funk): Featuring Paris, who no doubt makes a difference, but most
of what I hear is the contrast between Chuck and Flav. The beats
are a given. The rhymes are more up to the moment -- Paris? Make
love, fuck war. Emphasis on the latter. A

The Streets: The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living
(2006, Vice/Atlantic): Matos noted he loved this one from the first
play, whereas the previous one took time to win him over. Christgau
argues that "his skills have leapt a quantum." I found this extremely
awkward at first -- not without charms, of course, but hard to track,
either following the beats or the words. A half dozen plays later,
more sinks in than floats, and sometimes the awkwardness is part of
the charm. Sometimes not. Bookkeeping note: I've moved him from techno
to rap -- just too many words not to. A-

Jazz Prospecting (CG #10, Part 7)

Another week. Spent 4-5 days working through the unplayed new jazz,
but did manage to take some time out play some non-jazz, including
some new records that finally provide some non-jazz balance to my
fledging 2006 list: Public Enemy,
Rebirth of a Nation (currently #1); Ghostface Killah,
Fishscale (#7); The Streets, The Hardest Way to Make an
Easy Living (#16); Prince, 3121 (#24). Then I decided
I needed to pull some pending records off the replay shelf, so I'd
have something to report there, too. Incoming queue looks no less
daunting than a couple of weeks ago, so I expect next week will be
much like the last two -- at least until July Recycled Goods takes
over my attention. At this point I think the crush period for Jazz
CG will be the first two weeks of July. I have about a third of the
column done now, another third rated but unwritten, a few promising
records on the replay shelf, and a couple of new things I haven't
played but have hopes for. Don't have a dud yet. Don't care to pick
on the smoothies, but I still haven't yet played the Yellowjackets'
self-tribute to a quarter century of mediocrity. And there's always
the ultimate fall-back, The Essential Kenny G.

One more note: I've kept a
ratings database for a long time
now. It originally started as a list of what I owned. Then I tacked a
letter grade to the things I could remember well enough as a sort
of rough sort reminder; e.g., if someone wants a recommendation on
a Grant Green record, I could look it up and point to Born to
Be Blue or Idle Moments. Although the grades are more
useful to me than to you -- they don't say much, and they say as
much about me as about the records -- I posted them when I set up
the Ocston website, and I've kept plugging more data into them.
Anyhow, I mention this because the rated just just hit 12,000
records this week. That's still short of Robert Christgau's tally
(currently 13,184), but it approaches the same order of magnitude.
More jazz; correspondingly less of everything else.

The Miles Donahue Quintet: In the Pocket (1999 [2006],
Amerigo): Donahue was born in 1944, but didn't start recording until
1995. He's produced quite a bit since then, but I've only heard these
two examples. Plays alto sax, tenor sax and trumpet; also gets credit
for keyboards, but the pianist you notice here is most certainly Fred
Hersch. The tenor sax is most likely Jerry Bergonzi, but no other
trumpet players are listed, and I like the trumpet here as much as
anything else. Not sure how the Quintet is actually aligned. Credits
list eight musicians, with three singled out as "featuring": Hersch,
Bergonzi, and Kurt Rosenwinkle [sic]. Looks like Hersch and Bergonzi
are in, but the guitarist is an add-on for four tracks. The record is
the sort of postbop that I find annoyingly pointless: it sounds just
like jazz, as opposed to something of its own creation. That isn't
very well expressed: a rather vague idea, but "just like jazz" is a
placeholder for something missing -- doesn't matter what that is,
just that it's not there. What is there breaks down into separate
pieces, most of which are impressive on their own. The stars -- Hersch,
Bergonzi, Rosenwinkel -- are easily recognized for their signatures,
which show how warranted their stardom is. Donahue's trumpet stands
out more than his alto sax, but he makes an impression on both.
B+(*)

Michael Donahue: Bounce (2004 [2006], Amerigo):
Two sessions with less starpower than In the Pocket -- the
names here are Adam Nussbaum on one, John Patitucci on the other,
Joey Calderazzo on both. Half the tracks have guitar (Norm Zocher),
others bass clarinet (Ernie Sola). All of this fits the usual bright,
bouncy, slinky postbop mold.
B

Mold: Rotten in Rødby (2005 [2006], ILK): No relation
to the '90s rock group of the same name. This is a group with three
Danes and a German, formed in 2000 when they met up in New York. Two
horn quartet -- Anders Banke on saxes and clarinets, Stephan Meinberg
on trumpets -- with Mark Solborg's guitars and electronics instead of
bass. Interesting group, more free than anything else. Need to play
them again. [PS: Original CD was unplayable, but somehow I managed
to burn a viable copy.]
[B+(**)]

Carneyball Johnson (2006, Akron Cracker): Led by
Tin Huey saxophonist Ralph Carney, guitarist Kimo Ball and drummer
Scott Johnson contribute parts of their names, while Allen Whitman
just offers up his bass. For those who missed it, Tin Huey was one
of a half-dozen or so new wave bands to come out of Akron in the
late '70s -- Pere Ubu and Devo were better known; the Bizarros,
Rubber City Rebels, and the Numbers Band were more obscure; the
Waitresses were a spin-off from Tin Huey's Chris Butler -- with
a 1979 album fondly remembered for the Ubu-ish "I Could Rule the
World If I Could Only Get the Parts" (cf. Alfred Jarry's plays
more so than the band). I hear they still play together. Haven't
heard Carney's other albums, but saxophonists tend toward jazz --
after all, that's where the models come from. He plays Monk and
Sun Ra here, which I haven't digested yet. But the loose and trashy
pop singalongs based on the Yardbirds and Demond Dekker grabbed me
immediately.
[B+(**)]

Bill Carrothers: Shine Ball (2003-04 [2006], Fresh
Sound New Talent): A shine ball is a pitch where a foreign substance
has been applied to a baseball to give it an unexpected curve. The
idea applies here because Carrothers plays a prepared piano in a trio
setting. The preparation isn't extreme, but given that the pieces are
improvised on the spot, it's likely that the precise sounds weren't
fully anticipated; also that the range of temperaments was meant to
generate as much surprise as possible. This sort of thing has been
illegal, but not unheard of, in baseball since the 1920s. Whitey
Ford was reputed to have a dandy. Not sure about Carrothers' near
namesake, the 19th century pitcher Bob Caruthers, who rivals Ford
for all-time career winning percentage.
[B+(***)]

Ron Horton: Everything in a Dream (2005 [2006],
Fresh Sound New Talent): Horton comes out of New York's Jazz
Composers Collective, a circle that includes Ben Allison, Frank
Kimbrough, and others. On a map of the jazz universe they'd fit
on the seam between academically respectable postbop and the more
formal segments of the avant-garde. In other words, they are
serious cats, seeking to advance the state of the art within
an acknowledged formal framework. This record here is nothing
if not ambitious, and there is much to admire in it. Horton's
own trumpet and flugelhorn are joined by two saxes, piano, drums,
and two basses. The saxes are John O'Gallagher (alto) and Tony
Malaby (tenor), both superb. All of the players have excellent
parts, including featured bass solos for Masa Kamaguchi and John
Hebert. I'm less pleased with how they come together. There's
something sour in the sax-trumpet harmony I find a real turnoff.
Maybe there's some new-fangled harmonic theory at work here? --
I've hade the same reaction to dozens of albums from this same
milieu. Still, it's hard not to admire what he's done here, even
if I can't quite bring myself to like it.
B+(*)

Aaron Irwin Group: Into the Light (2005 [2006],
Fresh Sound New Talent): Irwin plays alto sax in a quartet with
guitar, bass and drums. Tenor saxist Rich Perry also appears on
five of eight tracks. Moderate postbop, not much distinguished,
although guitarist Ryan Scott has some nice moments, and Perry
makes himself heard.
B

Casually Introducing Walter Smith III (2005 [2006],
Fresh Sound New Talent): The artwork, especially the type on the back,
recalls Blue Note's '60s work, most explicitly Sam Rivers' debut,
Fuschia Swing Song -- a record that also contributes the first
song here. Beyond that the relationship stretches thin, as does the
tone of Smith's tenor sax. (He also plays soprano, and sometimes it
takes a while to figure out which is which.) Still, there's something
likable about this record. The keyboard work stands out -- mostly
Aaron Parks, but Robert Glasper takes the cake for his Fender Rhodes
cheese whiz on "Kate Song." The Mingus piece is lovely as usual. And
the saxophonist finally connects with his "Blues" routine, even if
it's a bit textbook. Smith's still young enough -- born in the '80s
as near as I can tell -- that his resume's still in pursuit of his
education. Don't think this is very good, but I do feel like hearing
it again.
[B+(*)]

Skerik's Syncopated Taint Septet: Husky (2004 [2005],
Hyena): Don't know Skerik's full or real name, where he came from (a
sensible guess is Seattle), how old he is, or anything else beyond the
public record: he plays tenor sax and has recorded since 1991, usually
in rockish groups -- Sadhappy, Tuatara, Critters Buggin', Mylab, and
Garage a Trois. That gives him two out of something like two, maybe
three, fusion-ish jazz albums I've A-listed in nine Jazz CGs. This is
his second Syncopated Taint Septet album -- haven't heard the first.
The name comes from longtime federal narc chief Harry J. Anslinger,
who derided jazz as "syncopated taint" as part of his campaign against
the evils of marijuana. I'm not quite as taken by this one as I was
by Mylab and Garage a Trois, probably because those are beat albums,
whereas Skerik is a horn man. He runs five horns here -- three saxes,
trumpet and trombone -- but while that thickens up the brass, if also
cuts his own impact down a bit. Still, an interesting album, in a
style that has yet to be pigeonholed with a name. Maybe I'll think
of one next spin.
[B+(**)]

Winard Harper Sextet: Make It Happen (2006, Piadrum):
The way I parse the credits sheet, the Sextet seems to have eight
members, including three percussionists not counting a leader who
plays balafon as well as drums. Another five musicians show up for
several tracks, including quasi-stars Antonio Hart and Wycliffe
Gordon; also Abdou Mboup and his talking drum. Over fifteen tracks
running 77:56 they cover a lot of ground, starting with Charlie
Parker and working their way through pieces by six band members --
OK, maybe that's the Sextet? Too many different things going on
here to make a coherent album, but lots of good things in the
details: the African percussion pieces are notable; guest pianist
Sean Higgins romps on Ray Bryant's "Reflection"; guest trombonist
Wycliffe Gordon brings down the house in "After Hours"; probably
more. Harper's having a ball.
B+(**)

Helen Sung Trio: Helenistique (2005 [2006],
Fresh Sound New Talent): Another good piano trio, with Derrick
Hodge on bass and Lewis Nash on drums. Sung composes one piece,
starting with it and reprising it at the end. In between she
arranges a wide range of more or less standard fare, ranging
from James P. Johnson's "Carolina Shout" to Prince's "Alphabet
Street, including the inevitable Ellington and Monk pieces,
the less obvious Kenny Barron. A slow, stretched, bass-centric
"Where or When" is especially refreshing.
[B+(***)]

Jamie Stewardson: Jhaptal (2003 [2006], Fresh
Sound New Talent): Guitarist, first attracted to rock, then to
John McLaughlin. Moved from Colorado to Boston in 1984 to attend
Berklee. Later studied with John Abercrombie, Joe Maneri, Mick
Goodrick. Doesn't have much of a discography: as far as I can
tell, this is first album, with one other appearance. He wrote
all of the songs here, but first time through here his guitar is
relatively invisible -- at least compared to Alexei Tsiganov's
vibes and Tony Malaby's tenor sax. Quintet also includes John
Hebert and George Schuller -- all things considered, a terrific
band. Need to go back again more closely and focus on the guitar.
[B+(**)]

Jordi Matas Quintet: Racons (2004 [2006], Fresh
Sound New Talent): Spanish guitarist, based in Barcelona. Quintet
includes saxophonist Marti Serra and pianist Jorge Rossy, as well
as bass and drums. His guitar is more up front than Stewardson's,
so it's easy to follow his clean, lean lines. Serra complements
him ably, but doesn't stand out like Malaby. Nice record.
B+(*)

Philip Dizack: Beyond a Dream (2005 [2006], Fresh
Sound New Talent): If you're interested in auspicious debuts, here's
one: Dizack was 19 when he cut this one, mostly with bandmates from
the Manhattan School of Music -- Greg Tardy is the ringer, the only
name here I recognize. Dizack plays trumpet, credits Nicholas Payton
and Terence Blanchard as influences -- wow, that's young! Chopswise
I'd say he's in their league already. My main caveats are that he
tries to too many things at once -- a common complaint I have about
well-schooled debut albums -- and that the messy two-sax sextet
crowds his trumpet. I reckon we'll be hearing more from pianist
Miro Sprague also.
B+(**)

Andrew Rathbun/George Colligan: Renderings: The Art of
the Duo (2005 [2006], Fresh Sound New Talent): "Art of the
Duo" is a phrase that's been batted around by several labels --
I'm not sure if it's a regular feature with FSNT, but Concord had
such a series, and I recall an Albert Mangelsdorff album of that
title. Dave Liebman, who's done a few duos himself, wrote the
liner notes here. Like Liebman, Rathbun plays tenor and soprano
sax. Colligan plays piano. This is effectively chamber music. It
starts with a piece by Ravel, then runs through a seven-part 25:46
suite. Later, along with a couple more originals, there's a 22:08
piece by Spanish composer Federico Mompou. So overall, it feels
more like classical than jazz -- the piano plump, the sax shading.
I don't really get it, but find much of it appealing.
B+(*)

Sam Bardfeld: Periodic Trespasses (2004 [2006],
Fresh Sound New Talent): Aka "The Saul Cycle": Bardfeld narrates
Saul's story in seven chapters, with pieces of music in between,
the structure reminding me "Peter and the Wolf" -- I'm most familiar
with Eno's version, but there's also a variant called Pincus and
the Pig. I don't have the story straight, so that will take
some further investigation. The group features Bardfeld's violin,
Ron Horton's trumpet, and Tom Beckham's vibes, with Sean Conly and
Satoshi Takeishi rounding up the rhythm. The violin has a little
boogie in it; the trumpet is further out, and the combination is
more than a little askew. Still working on it.
[B+(**)]

Jason Rigby: Translucent Space (2005 [2006], Fresh
Sound New Talent): More postbop complexity here: nine musicians,
although I doubt that more than the core quartet -- Rigby, Mike
Holober on piano, Cameron Brown on bass, Mark Ferber on drums --
play all that much. Rigby plays three weights of sax, bass clarinet
and wood flute. I think this is his debut, although he's been on
a half dozen or so other people's albums, including one by Kris
Davis I rated an Honorable Mention. With virtually all new jazz
composers coming up through the academy, I suppose the attraction
of postbop is that it provides the sort of framework for emotional
articulation that classical music provided way back when. I could
care less about the degree of difficulty here, but I am impressed
that how well he holds it all together. Also impressed, once again,
by Holober.
[B+(**)]

Dave Burrell/Billy Martin: Consequences (2005 [2006],
Amulet): A remarkable albeit rather limited meeting. Martin doesn't
drum along, because Burrell doesn't give him anything to drum along
with. He plays Tayloresque pianistics, if anything more abstract.
Despite its tuning and variable decay, on some level the piano is
just another percussion instrument, so why not think of this as a
percussion duet? It's rather arbitrary whether I make this a low A-
or a high B+, but for now I like it as an Honorable Mention because
I got a one-liner for it: Old pianist shows young drummer what real
percussion sounds like.
B+(***)

And these are final grades/notes on records I put back for further
listening the first time around.

The Crimson Jazz Trio: The King Crimson Songbook: Volume
One (2005, Voiceprint): Drummer Ian Wallace put this group
together after a tour with Frippless Crimson spinoff group 21st
Century Schizoid Band. Nothing in Wallace's background suggests
that he would come up with such a straightforward jazz group --
his resume includes Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, David Lindley, Don
Henley, Bonnie Raitt, Ry Cooder, Jackson Browne, Stevie Nicks,
Warren Zevon, Keith Emerson, Crosby Stills and Nash, and so forth.
Fretless bassist Tim Landers is another studio/tour pro with mostly
rock acts on his list, although he can cite Gil Evans, Billy Cobham,
Don Grolnick, and the Breckers. That leaves pianist Jody Nardone as
the only certifiable jazz guy, but working out of Nashville he's
got some mud on his flaps too. King Crimson was, and more or less
still is, an English prog rock group led by non-singer guitarist
Robert Fripp. Although it had some jazz threads, that doesn't appear
to matter much here. What matters here is that the songs have enough
structure to give Nardone something to nibble on, and he rearranges
them enough to make it hard for someone as superificially acquainted
with them as me to connect the dots. Where Crimson does approach the
surface is in the undertow of Landers' bass. Otherwise, this is just
a conventional piano trio that gets a lot of mileage out of songs
that haven't entered the jazz canon.
B+(***)

Roy Nathanson: Sotto Voce (2005 [2006], AUM Fidelity):
The first song reminds me of an Annette Peacock song. The second is a
sickly pop hit that Billy Jenkins got to first. In other words, both
are good, but remind me of better. The music throughout reminds me of
the Jazz Passengers, not surprising given that Nathanson was their
leader and Curtis Fowlkes is also on board here, but the music takes
a back seat to the words, and therein lies the rub. After the first
two songs this gets drab, starting with a riff on "Motherless Child"
and quickly descending into Brechtian territory, or do I mean Tom
Waits? Interesting ideas here, but too many allusions make me think
it should be better.
B+(*)

Thomas Storrs and Sarpolas: Time Share (2005 [2006],
Louie): Rob Thomas justly gets top billing here, even if doing so
leads to confusion. He is the latest in the series of violinists to
work in the String Trio of New York, and he sets the tone here. Dave
Storrs is a drummer based in Oregon or thereabouts. I've noticed him
elsewhere as a guy who plays with the band, and he adds a lot to the
violin here. Dick Sarpola plays bass; George Sarpola adds some extra
percussion, hence the Sarpolas.
B+(***)

Stefano Battaglia: Raccolto (2003 [2006], ECM, 2CD):
The first disc is a piano-bass-drums trio, slow and free, fascinating
as it tiptoes around the edges of chaos without ever taking the plunge.
Second disc replaces the bass with Dominique Pifarély's violin, which
upsets the sonic balance, moving the piano back a notch.
B+(**)

Theo Bleckmann/Fumio Yasuda: Las Vegas Rhapsody: The Night
They Invented Champagne (2005 [2006], Winter & Winter):
As Americans we're much too close to Las Vegas to appreciate how
strangely, definitively American the place can seem to foreigners.
Fumio Yasuda orchestrates these songs not as show business so much
as transcendental fantasy, inflating fluff like "Teacher's Pet" and
"The Gal in Calico," but also playing "My Favorite Things" as light
heartedly as "Chim Chim Cheree." Bleckmann sings, so sweet you feel
faint. Bernd Ruf and the Kammerorchester Basel play their parts.
B+(***)

Gebhard Ullmann/Chris Dahlgren/Jay Rosen: Cut It Out
(2000 [2006], Leo): With Ullmann playing bass clarinet and bass flute,
this is pitched low enough it may take a seismograph to fully sort it
out. I find it shifts in and out. Like what I hear when I hear it,
both the hard-earned lines and the residual rumble.
B+(*)

The Summer Movie Season

Movie: Thank You for Smoking. The local theatre chain
has been opening their shows with a "voice of the announcer" chortling
about how Summer is coming and that's when Hollywood brings out their
finest products. The net result of this is that the actual number of
films showing here in Wichita is down about 25% from the dull days of
winter, mostly because the same mega-crap is being shown in multiple
theatres. We've been hard up for anything to get us out of the house.
Went to see this one on the rumor that it might be funny. It is,
mostly, although the smart aleck son seems likely to turn into a
major public nuissance.
B+

Movie: The DaVinci Code. Didn't know anything about
this going in -- haven't read the book, but have read several of the
reviews about how deadly dull the film is. Turns out it's not deadly
dull; more like ordinarily dull. Turns out it's not about much of
anything either, other than the notion that a genetic line of descent
actually means anything after 2000 years -- an issue that could be
cleared up with a whiff of numeracy. I thought the flashback scenes
to the middle ages were an interesting effect, as if there's another
movie lurking somewhere trying to get out. But content-wise those
images could have been clearer about what vile motherfuckers the
Crusaders were (and for that matter still are). As it is, they
leave the vileness to the principals in the present age, who take
this nonsense way too seriously.
B-

A Prairie Home Companion. Again, I approach a movie
from a strong position of ignorance about what it's about, except
that's not really true: I have some idea about Garrison Keillor even
though I've never listened to more than accidental moments of his
show, and I know a good deal more about Robert Altman, the top dozen
or so actors here, and the music they draw on. All of these elements
are completely marvelous. Even the side story with Guy Noir and the
lady in white rain wouldn't touch weave in nicely -- Kevin Kline
hasn't been this funny since A Fish Named Wanda. Saw it on
a huge screen in a theatre packed for a first matinee and loved
every moment of it. Note that it's the only screen in town showing
this movie. Must not be one of Hollywood's Best.
A

House of War

William Grimes' New York Times review of James Carroll's House of
War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power is a
weaselly piece of writing. Laura wanted me to write a rejoinder, but
everywhere I try to nail him down turns out to be hollow. Most of what he
has to say is an episodic list of notes, recapitulating the book without
connecting it together. He complains, for instance, that it's not
really a biography of the Pentagon, missing that the massive building
is in fact a physical metaphor for the permanent, self-perpetuating
war machine that it headquarters. He derides the book as "impassioned,
tendentious, morally incoherent," totally missing the exceptionally
rigorous moral theme of Carroll's carefully considered antiwar stance.
He laments, "It is hard, really, to understand what Mr. Carroll wants
from the United States, since he detests the very notion that it has
power and sometimes seems to be suggesting that the wrong side came
out on top in the cold war." Carroll shows how the desire to dominate
escalated the US-Soviet rivalry to the brink of world devastating war.
No side won, or could win, such a war: the "evil empire" Soviet Union
backed out, while the US continued to build its arsenal as it sought
out new enemies to justify continued beligerence. In the end, Grimes
falls back on the canard: "The cold war was a dreadful time but perhaps
not as dreadful as the years 1914 to 1918 or 1939 to 1945. If you don't
like it cold, try it hot." The implication here is that the Cold War
as it turned out was the best of all possible outcomes -- a pathetic,
self-aggrandizing "just so" reading of history.

History, of course, cannot be changed. The reason one asks questions
about choices in the past is not to pretend they can be changed, or to
retroactively make moral judgments about their actors, but to open up
the range of options for the present. I suspect this is one reason
Carroll pays so much more attention to aerial bombing and nuclear
weapons strategies than he does to the not-so-cold wars in Korea and
Vietnam: aerial bombing and nuclear weapons are still very much part
of US war policy, and past ideas about their efficacy, their utility,
and their morality distort current policy. In this regard, Carroll
repeatedly returns to Henry Stimson's 1945 initiative to defuse the
likelihood of "a rather desperate arms race" with the Soviet Union
by sharing the secrets of nuclear weapons. Stimson's main opponent
at that time was Navy Secretary James Forrestal, whose paranoia --
certainly a part of his extreme anti-communism -- was soon to lead
to his suicide. For those who grew up with the Cold War as natural
fact, it may well be surprising that such a momentous decision in
US history should turn on two personalities, let alone that the
victory should go to the psychotic one.

Of course, Forrestal won the day not because he was mad but
because he was in tune with momentous decisions made in the early
days of World War II. Carroll identifies four key decisions and
intimately links them through their dates: the building of the
Pentagon; the proclamation of unconditional surrender as the war
goal; the adoption of a bombing policy that became increasingly
indiscriminate as the war progressed; and the start of the atom
bomb project. The latter three points may be thought of as the
ideal of total war, the psychological and moral distance that
lets total war be fought, and the weapon that consumates total
war. All three connected fatefully and spectacularly at Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, setting the tone for all future wars. This could
have been the moment to recognize that war had become something
that mankind could never again afford, but others were loathe to
give up the war economy, the martial spirit, or the pinnacle of
American power. The Pentagon was their headquarters, their icon.

The story that follows is one of creating a foe out of the real
and imagined threats posed by the Soviet Union and Communists all
around the world, and building a military force powerful enough to
defend against and ideally roll back that threat. Events like the
Berlin blockade and the Korean war helped paint the enemy. Soviet
development of nuclear bombs and ICBMs accelerated the arms race.
Over time America's belief in the inherent evil of the Communist
enemy became so deep-seated that when Gorbachev attempted to reform
the Soviet Union he was widely disbelieved. Even with the collapse
of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, America's military
juggernaut proved to be unstoppable, at least until it became mired
in Iraq. This conditioning still dominates our thinking: we fear
tiny groups of jihadist Muslims because we fear what they could do
if they somehow obtained the bomb we grew up fearing, and because
we so fear them, we fight them so desperately -- as should be clear
by now, so foolishly. But we do so because we have been conditioned
to feed the Pentagon.

Carroll's book is idiosyncratic in several ways. He draws numerous
connections by coincidental dates, including his birth date the week
the Pentagon was dedicated, and he makes much more of these dates
than anyone reasonably should. More significantly, he also weaves
his own personal experiences into the story, which provide unique
twists on the story. His father was a Lieutenant General in the Air
Force -- through most of the '60s head of the Defense Intelligence
Agency. Needless to say, that gives him an unusual perspective. I
doubt that any other antiwar activist can say his next door neighbor
was Curtis Lemay. Others may have had their fathers warn them of
impending nuclear attacks during the Cuban missile crisis, but
Carroll's experience stands out there as exceptionally vivid.
Carroll's subsequent passage through the Catholic priesthood and
his relationship with the Catholic peace movement also loom large
and personal. The result is a book that only he could have written.
Not all of it is equally useful, but it clearly fits together in
his own mind: the notion that it is "morally incoherent" is beyond
laughable.

I've already quoted the book on a couple of topics: on issues
of the corruptibility of intelligence, and on the Pentagon's revolt
against Clinton over gays in the military. There is much more here,
including especially good capsule summaries of Iran-Contra, Panama,
and Kosovo. The biggest surprise to me was his interpretation of how
Reagan's loony case for Star Wars led him to agree to limiting nukes
over the objections of his warmongering staff. Carroll's ability to
speak with people like Robert McNamara, who granted the interview
because of his "great admiration" for Carroll's father, is unusual.
But then it should be noted that Carroll is unusually sympathetic
to his Pentagon subjects. This book is no laundry list of American
atrocities. That it finally comes off as damning is due to its hard
won integrity.

Here are a few more quotes I noted. Obviously, one thing that
fed the arms race was interservice rivalry (p. 107):

As was true of Air Force advocates, Forrestal had been quick to see
the usefulness of a Soviet threat in making a case that Navy budgets
had to be protected. This dovetailed with his long-standing attitude,
for as much as Forrestal loved the Navy, he loathed Communism, had for
years. And now that hostility meshed with his parochial resentment of
the upstart Air Force. As debates over the new structure of the
combined military establishment continued, Forrestal shamelessly
protected Navy turf, but he did so by arguing from highflying
idealism.

After WWII US armed forces quickly demobilized, as they had after
every previous US war. The Cold War started later, as Soviet and other
Communist -- France and Italy had substantial, independent Communist
parties coming out of the war, largely due to the leadership role they
had taken in the anti-Nazi resistance -- political acts came to be
interpreted through a narrow ideological lens. George Kennan's 1946
"long telegram" was instrumental here, especially as promoted by
Forrestal (p. 132-133):

But it was the Unitd States, more than the Soviet Union, that
militarized that political conflict, making it far more dangerous and
costly than it needed to be.

This development began to unfold first in the mind of James
Forrestal. In his perception, at a time of massive demobilization, the
urgent military need was paramount,a nd the article by "X" [George
Kennan] was read to support that. [ . . . ]

Truman then circulated among his top officials a 100,000-word
statement of his own thinking, composed by his most trusted aide,
Clark Clifford, and a colleague. Called "American Relations with the
Soviet Union," and drawing directly on the Long Telegram, the document
showed that the Forrestal thesis was now policy; "The language of
military power politics is the only language which the disciples of
power [in Moscow] understand . . .&nbsp. Therefore, in order
to maintain our strength at a level which will be effective in
restraining the Soviet Union, the United States must be prepared to
wage atomic and biological warfare."

In 1950, after the Soviets had tested their first A-bomb, Paul
Nitze wrote a document called "United States Objectives and Programs
for National Security," henceforth referred to as NSC-68. This was
the foundation document of US Cold War policy (pp. 183-184):

The stark bipolarity of NSC-68 would be one stout pillar of
America's Cold War perceptions. It was set firmly in the foundation of
unconscious assumptions that had long organized the perceptions of the
West and that had now come to dominate the mindset of, for example,
Nitze's sponsor Dean Acheson. "The threat to Western Europe," he wrote
in his memoir, regarding his view in 1950, "seemed to me singularly
like that which Islam had posed centuries before, with its combination
of ideological zeal and fighting power." Recalling the Crusades and
bringing its lessons of strategic alliance forward, Acheson added,
"Then it had taken the same combination to meet it: Germanic power in
the east and Frankish in Spain. This time it would need the added
power and energy of America, for the drama was now played on a world
stage.

Western civilization had come into its own by defining itself in
opposition to an ememy in the East. The Russian imagination might
drift back to those seventeenth-century invasions, but the inner clock
of Western Europe, an dits American offspring, had been set running in
the eleventh century. The anti-Islamic wars of resistance and
reconquista, dominating politics and culture for nearly three
centuries, depended on messianic mysticism, apocalyptic fervor, and
millenial dread. The crusading world was divided between good and
evil, the faithful and the infidel, with the pope himself consecrating
the "War of the Cross." The alliance with God was certain. For the
first time in the history of Christendom, violence was there defined
as a sacred act, and anyone who took up the fight was promised
salvation: "God wills it!" Instead of Urban II and the rallying sermon
in Clermont, the American crusade had Paul Nitze and NSC-68.

Within this framework, the Korean war was viewed as an act of
Soviet aggression, not as the local event it initially was (p. 191):

On November 30 at a Washington press conference, with the
morityfing rout still under way, Truman said that the Korean conflict,
even with the Chinese intervention, was the result of Russian
Communist aggression, the source of a new world crisis. Moscow was the
enemy. Korea was only Moscow's forward line. The president declared
his intention to hold that line, "to halt this aggression in Korea."
He promised to take "whatever steps are necessary." Did that include
the atomic bomb? a reporter asked. "That includes every weapon we
have," Truman answered, and then added, about the bomb, "There has
always been active consideration of its use."

Truman later moderated his stance, resisting numerous proposals
by the military to use nuclear weapons in the conflict. MacArthur
advocated attacking China with bombing and blockades; he was finally
relieved of his command. Another incident (p. 193):

Stuart Symington, who as secretary of the Air Force had done so
much to empower LeMay and SAC (and my father), was now the chairman of
the National Security Resources Board, an adjunct to the National
Security Council. Symington was Truman's Missouri friend, and it was
he who, in early January 1951, presented NSC-100, which recommended
sending LeMay's atomic bombers against China, with a simultaneous
warning to the Soviet Union that it would be attacked, too, for any
"aggression." Again Truman said no.

After he took office in 1953, Eisenhower again threatened to use
nuclear weapons: an exercise in atomic diplomacy aimed at bullying
the Soviets into signing the war-ending armistice. Nixon went even
further during the Vietnam War, actually sending bombers into the
Arctic. Kennedy came closest to launching nuclear war during the
Cuba missile crisis, defused by the Soviet Union backing down. The
Soviets never once readied their nukes for use, although their
existence certainly gave US leaders reason to moderate numerous
proposals by trigger-happy generals and defense intellectuals.
The Soviets had announced a "no first use" policy as far back as
Brezhnev. That policy has since been rescinded by the post-Soviet
Russian leader Vladimir Putin, perhaps in response to Bush's plans
for a new generation of "tactical" nukes. The Bush regime is second
to no post-WWII administration in viewing the world in Manichean,
us-versus-evil terms, only now the Crusade is aimed once again at
Islam.

William Grimes's next New York Times book review took a look at
Peter Beinart's The Good Fight: Why Liberals -- and Only Liberals --
Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again. This one
is equally sloppy, but happier: evidently Beinart's enthusiasm for
"the good fight" against Islamic totalitarianism strikes a positive
chord in Grimes. Grimes quotes Beinart as arguing that Liberals must
recognize that "there is no contradiction between recognizing that
our enemies are not intrinsically evil, and recognizing that they
must be fought, just as there is no contradiction between recognizing
that although we are not intrinsically good, we must fight them."
Now, that sounds like a pretty good example of "morally incoherent"
to me. Andrew O'Hehir's review of the same book in Salon describes
Beinhart's confusion this way:

Still, Beinart's opening confession creates a problem that echoes
throughout the length and breadth of The Good Fight. He is
defending a political ideology that, as he admits, led him to support
an arrogant and ill-fated military adventure. The same political
ideology, as he also admits, led an earlier generation of liberal
hawks into a different arrogant and ill-fated military adventure, in
Southeast Asia. (Earlier still, the same ideology led too many
American liberals to equivocate from the sidelines for too long while
Joe McCarthy persecuted suspected Communists and their families.)
Perhaps only a liberal could find himself so consistently behind the
eight ball, admitting his own team's flaws and hypocrisies while still
arguing for its moral rightness.

One striking point from both reviews is how Beinart characterizes
the Salafi-Jihadism of Al-Qaeda as totalitarian. That's one of those
isms that should instantly set of alarm bells, because it is a word
that no one ever claimed to believe it. Totalitarianism is a sleight
of hand originally meant to lump Hitler and Stalin -- Nazism and
Communism -- into the same stinky bag, tainting each with the other,
rendering both as the evil other opposed to good ole us. The first
casualty of this concept was that it let us forget that Nazism was
invented as the antipode to Communism, that the Soviet Union was
the main target of Germany's WWII aggression, and that most of the
actual fight against the Nazis, and a big chunk of the fight against
Imperial Japan, was done by Communists. But the main point of the
term was to characterize Communism as an inherently alien, evil,
implacable foe of everything we believe in -- to make it impossible
to respect, compromise with, or achieve any sort of modus vivendi
with Communists. Stalin, Mao and others did things that made it
easy to taint Communism like that, but even there it was a massive
distortion of reality, done purely for propaganda. Applying that
same brush to any strain of political Islam, as Liberal warmonger
Paul Berman does, obscures reality even worse. The only reason to
do this is to invoke the precedence of the "good fight" against
Fascism and/or Communism as a model for war against Islam. To do
so offers no enlightenment, no insight, and most importantly no
common ground that might let us live together. The absolute evil
we abhor is nothing more than the projection of the absolute
self-righteous we have become.

Evidently, Beinhart has made some progress at recognizing that
his initial support for Bush's Iraq fiasco was misguided. But he
still has some learning to do. Hopefully he won't have to learn
it all the hard way, as he has with Bush and Iraq.

Rove's War

Following their takedown of the thug they shamelessly hyped as the
head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Bush Administration has escalated their
offensive on the only battleground where they have any chance of success:
the Democrats in Congress. Helena Cobban quotes David Sanger and Jim
Reutenberg as writing in the New York Times:

[The Baghdad meeting] came as Republicans began a new effort to use
last week's events to turn the war to their political advantage after
months of anxiety, and to sharpen attacks against Democrats. On Monday
night, the president's top political strategist, Karl Rove, told
supporters in New Hampshire that if the Democrats had their way, Iraq
would fall to terrorists and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would not have been
killed.

"When it gets tough, and when it gets difficult, they fall back on
that party's old pattern of cutting and running," Mr. Rove said at a
state Republican Party gathering in Manchester.

This reminds me of how Bob Dole used to rag the Democrats as the
war party. The history there is that the two World Wars, Korea and
Vietnam all started while Democrats occupied the White House. The
first two were clear victories under Democrat command. The latter
two didn't end until Republicans took over the White House, who
proceded to negotiate Korea to a stalemate while turning Vietnam
into a staggering loss. It's hard to argue from this history that
the Democrats are congenitally weak in war. If anything, history
shows that Democrats have been more committed to their war goals
and more competent at executing those wars than the Republicans.
I'm not saying that this has been a good thing -- in Vietnam it
certainly wasn't -- but to the extent that you can draw any such
lessons from history, that's how it stacks up.

The only example of a war started by a Republican and ended with
a Democrat cutting and running was Somalia. That one was a poison
pill concocted by lame duck GHW Bush for no more obvious reason than
to embarrass his successor. Clinton's withdrawal was no more hasty
or unreasonable than Reagan's retreat from Beirut. Both misadventures
have since been seen as admissions that the US could be beat back
by Islamist terror, but their real strategic weakness was that they
were conceived for no good reason -- by trigger-happy Republicans.

One item in the news this week is that the US is planning a new
offensive in Afghanistan to take back the Pushtun areas in the south,
once again under Taliban control. Virtually every Democrat in Congress
supported the US going to war in Afghanistan. Can anyone doubt that
the Afghanistan war would have been more effectively commanded by a
Democrat? Any likely Democrat -- Clinton, Gore, Kerry -- would have
understood that merely chasing the Taliban into the hills wouldn't
do the trick. How successful they might have been is hard to tell,
but the only successful occupations in US history were Germany and
Japan, under Democrats.

As for Iraq, the Republicans sure left a lot of room for improvement
there too, and often by doing stereotypically Republican things, like
pissing all over the UN framework, privatizing an economy that was
overwhelmingly state run, and delegating all the reconstruction funds
to their no show political cronies. Still, the problem with Iraq has
never been mere competency: it was the original decision to invade and
occupy the country. Would a Democrat have made such a fateful mistake?
Probably not. There was virtually no support for such a war beyond
the Republican-Neocon cabal, and they wouldn't have been nearly so
effective without being able to manipulate the levers of presidential
power.

Still, I don't take any comfort in knowing that the Democrats are
more competent than the Republicans at war. War is so destructive,
not just of the physical world but also of civility and morality,
that it's hard to imagine any real world situation that justifies
it. Indeed, the reason the Democrats are more effective at war is
that they are generally less eager to plunge into it. (An exception
was Woodrow Wilson, but he takes us back a ways; further back, in
fact, than the distance between Wilson and such early Democratic
hawks as Andrew Jackson and James Polk.) That reluctance is one of
the main reasons the Republicans can get away with such goading.
By exposing conflict and indecision in the Democrats, this makes
the Democrats appear weak, and conversely the Republicans strong.
Under threat, people instinctively flock to strong and decisive
leaders; in our case forsaking smart and savvy ones.

Republican attacks have worked so far, but one wonders how long
folks will continue to favor instinct over experience. One answer
is as long as the Democrats cower under such attacks. Most of the
people who vote Democrat in no way benefit from or favor continuing
Bush's occupation of Iraq, yet only six Democrats supported their
constituents in the meaningless straw vote the Republicans forced.
The purpose of that vote is to show the Democratic base how feckless
their leaders are. That, too, is an old and tired story. For instance,
Kevin Phillips (American Theocracy, p. x) writes:

But the national Democrats have their own complicity. Their lack of
understanding and moxie has contributed to the mutation of the
GOP. Without that weak and muddled opposition, both before and after
September 11, the Republican transformation would have been impolitic
and perhaps impossible.

At some point Democrats need to recognize that war hurts them
bad enough to stand up against it. But even so, muddled is nowhere
near so bad as fearlessly, fanatically wrong. If I have to fly,
I'd much rather have a pilot who knows how to land than one who
only knows how to take off.

A Timeline to the Crusade

When I finished reading James Caroll's big book on the Pentagon,
House of War, I was psyched up enough to pull his previously
unread Crusade off the shelf. The latter is much shorter --
286 pages vs. 516, not counting notes and index -- but turns out to
be a tougher read. The reason is that it's stitched together from
newspaper columns -- in other words, consistently sized chunks of
then-current musings without much flow. Still, Crusade has
its merits. In particular, it provides a chronology from Sept. 11,
2001 through Mar. 16, 2004, the one year anniversary of Bush's Iraq
misadventure. As such, it gives contemporary significance to events
that have since been blurred: the unsolved anthrax attacks, the
nuclear showdown between India and Pakistan, the DC sniper attacks,
major Defense Dept. policy documents, etc. It has some personal
specialties, opening with a discussion of the Crusades, closing
with Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ -- Carroll was
at one point a Roman Catholic priest, and he's written a book on
antisemitism in the Christian church, so those are issues that
especially touch his nerves. It also has what read like rough
drafts for the Pentagon book -- certainly less interesting after
the fact.

I didn't mark up much in the book, but here's a quote from
July 8, 2003 (p. 210, "Ridding the World of Evil"):

But there's the problem with President Bush. It is not the moral
immaturity of the texts he reads. Like his callow statement in the
National Cathedral on September 14, 2001, they are written by someone
else. When the president speaks, unscripted, from his own moral
center, what shows itself is a bottomless void. To address concerns
about the savage violence engulfing "postwar" Iraq with a cocksure
"Bring 'em on!" (as he did last week) is to display an absence of
imagination shocking in a man of such authority. It showed a lack of
capacity to identify either with enraged Iraqis who must rise to such
a taunt, or with young GIs who must now answer for it. Even in
relationship to his own soldiesr, there is nothing at the core of this
man but visceral meanness.

No human being with a minimal self-knowledge could speak of evil as
he does, but there is no self-knowledge without a self. Even this
short "distance of history" shows George W. Bush to be, in that sense,
the selfless president, which is not a compliment. It's a warning.

This one is notable for its date, Sept. 2, 2003 (p. 219, "The War
Is Lost"):

The war is lost. By most measures of what the Bush administration
forecast for its adventure in Iraq, it is already a failure. The war
was going to make the Middle East a more peaceful place. It was going
to undercut terrorism. It was going to show the evil dictators of the
world that American power is not to be resisted. It was going to
improve the lives of ordinary Iraqis. It was going to stabilize oil
markets. The American army was going to be greeted with flowers.

None of that happened. The most radical elements of various fascist
movements in the Arab world have been energized by the terrorists.
Instead of undermining extremism, Washington has sponsored its next
phase, and now moderates in every Arab society are more on the
defensive than ever. Before the war, the threat of America's
overwhelming military dominance could intimidate, but now that force
has been shown to be extremely limited in what it can actually
accomplish. For the sake of regime change, the Unitd States brought a
sledgehamnmer down on Iraq, only to profess surprise that, even as
Saddam Hussein remained at large, the structures of the nation's civil
society were in ruins.

Finally, closing the book one year after launch of Operation
Iraqi Freedom, Mar. 16, 2004 (pp. 274-276):

The situation hardly needs rehearshing. In Iraq, many thousands are
dead, including 564 Americans. Civil war threatens. Afghanistan,
meanwhile, is choked by drug-running warlords. Islamic jihadists have
been empowered. The nuclear profiteering of Pakistan has been exposed
but not necessarily stopped. Al Qaeda's elusiveness has reinforced its
mythic malevolence. The Atlantic alliance is in ruins. The United
States has never been more isolated. A pattern of deception has
destroyed its credibility abroad and at home. Disorder spreads from
Washington to Israel to Haiti to Spain. Whether the concern is
subduing resistance fighters far away or making Americans feel safer,
the Pentagon's unprecedented military dominance, the costs of which
stifle the U.S. economy, is shown to be essentially impotent.
[ . . . ] Whatever happens from this week forward
in Iraq, the main outcome of the war, for the United States is clear.
We have defeated ourselves.

A little over two years later, most of the changes have merely
been quantitative. Just this week, the number of American soldiers
killed in Iraq topped 2,500.

Flag Wavers

Front page news in the Wichita Eagle today: Senator Sam Brownback
supports the American flag. Also the pledge of allegiance -- he really
likes the "under God" part. All the other national and world news,
starting with Bush's joyride to Baghdad, got filed on page four. At
least, all that fit. Also in the paper today was a report on the net
worth of the Kansas Congressional delegation. Brownback took honors
in that piece as well: he's far and away the richest. Of course, he
got his money the really old fashioned way: he inherited it.

As for Senator Pat Roberts, considering how much money he funnels
to agribusiness, his net worth at a million-plus-change must give him
one of the best ROIs in Congress. Poor Jim Ryun brought up the rear,
confirming reports that he's too dumb to steal, even. That's what he
gets for giving it all away.

A Truce Ends

The acid question for pacifists has always been: but what do you
do when you face a foe who who persists in attacking you violently?
This question is usually intended to separate the near-pacifists --
those who will fight back once sufficiently cornered -- from the pure,
presumably foolish, martyrs. It is intended to show that pacifism is
unrealistic, because the existence of such persistent malefactors is
assumed. Examples from the more/less distant past, starting of course
with the Nazis, are trotted out.

I didn't bring this up to preface a disquisition on pacifism. I
just want to point out a more timely example of a group that insists
on repaying non-violent resistance with fresh violence: Israel. The
bare bones outline is thus: a few years ago the Palestinians elected
Mahmoud Abbas as President of the Palestinian Authority. Abbas is a
long-time pragmatic opponent of Palestinian violence against Israel.
Israel's response to Abbas was to shun him, to show the Palestinians
that electing a non-violent leader would get them nothing, would do
no good. Sixteen months ago Hamas, an Islamic opposition group with
a past history of anti-Israeli violence, declared a unilateral truce,
ceasing all attacks against Israel. Israel's response to this truce
was to continue its frequent bombardment of Palestinian territories,
again reminding Palestinians that nonviolence gets them nothing.
Nonetheless, Hamas was able to parlay its new statesmanship into
victory in democratic elections in Palestine. This time Israel's
response was not merely to shun Hamas but to cut off desperately
needed humanitarian aid. In other words, when the Palestinians tried
to democratically replace one non-violent party that Israel had done
nothing for with another non-violent party, Israel's response was to
punish all Palestinians with starvation. But that was not all: Israel
continued to shell and bomb Palestinian territories, assassinating
a high official in the new Hamas government and numerous others who
were no threat to Israel.

The upshot of all this is that Hamas finally rescinded its truce.
Presumably this will lead to what Israel obviously wants: a dramatic
escalation in the level of anti-Israeli violence, and an even more
dramatic escalation of Israel's collective punishment of Palestinians.
Of course, no good will come of this -- except perhaps in how all the
bloodshed might turn world public opinion as it becomes more and more
obvious how monstrous Israel's 39-year-old occupation of Gaza and the
West Bank has become. But even there it is more likely that opinions
will polarize rather than turn. Israel has only been able to punish
Hamas like this because the US and, most embarrassingly, Europe have
backed Israel, reforming the colonialist alliance that backed Israel
against the Palestinians in 1947, creating this long-running tragedy.
The message they have delivered is plain -- not just to Palestinians
but to all Arabs, all Muslims, and anyone else who cares: nonviolence
gets you nowhere with us; and if you don't like them shakes, bring
it on.

This will be a tough time for pacifists, near-pacifists, anyone
who wonders why we can't get along. We at least understand that
violence, whether it seems to work for one's advantage or not, in
the end takes a horrible toll from its perpetrators as well as its
victims. We should also understand that when two sides fight they
are not necessarily equally at fault. The worst by far is the side
that has the power to do otherwise, that uses its power against
justice, and that relentlessly chooses violence. Right now, Israel
is the exemplar of all three faults. I'm not saying that this in
any way justifies anti-Israeli violence. But I am saying that if
you don't expect all people at all times to be faithful pacifists --
if you think there's ever a case when it's necessary to fight
back with force -- then you have to recognize that any anti-Israeli
violence that does occur is the fault of those who provoked it:
Israel. At least until such time as Israel radically changes its
policies, its attitude to the Palestinians, and its belief that
overwhelming force justifies everything.

Meanwhile, we should be clear that America's rejection of the
results of the Palestinian elections puts the lie to everything
Bush and others -- Thomas Friedman, for one -- have said about
the desirability and blessings of democracy for the Arab world.
As in Iraq, what Bush is really saying is that elections are only
valid when our guys win. Of course, that's Bush's position on
elections in America as well.

Speaking of Bush, PBS aired much too much of his press conference
last night. I almost never watch him any more, so the thing I was
most struck by is how closely he mimicks his caricatures. In fact,
I didn't realize before how understated those caricatures are. Every
question I felt like I was watching Saturday Night Live pushing the
envelope of credulity.

As for substance, all Bush had to say was that the war in Iraq
is nothing more than a struggle of willpower; that his own willpower
is unshakeable, regardless of how low his polls go, so no point in
even bothering to try to change his mind; and that he thinks the
Iraqis he met with and their Unity Government are on board with that
too, but if they falter the failure will be all their fault. He
emphasized that Iraq is the war on Al Qaeda -- good thing
they belatedly showed up, don't you think? And he used the word
"succeed" an awful lot, although a couple of times it sounded more
like "secede" -- making me wonder if Plan B is just to turn the
Green Zone into an island state, like the Vatican in Rome. It
sounds like the next step is to secure Baghdad like they secured
Fallujah, but he didn't explain the logistics of herding five
million people into tents in the desert while they level 75% of
the city, or what would happen when the insurgents they flush out
take over the rest of the country.

He did offer one ray of hope when he said that US troops would
leave whenever the Iraqi government tells them to. Most Iraqis have
wanted that for a long time now, but the nominal masters of the
Green Zone follow a more complicated calculus. On the one hand,
they need the Americans for personal protection, and some find the
US useful for beating down their political opponents. On the other
hand, the Americans are offering less and wrecking more, and at
some point their liabilities tip over whatever benefits alliance
with the US seems to offer.

"My Heart Hurts for Them"

The June 12, 2006 issue of The New Yorker takes "Living in
War" as its theme. I haven't read much of it -- I've had quite enough
of war, thank you -- but I did notice this bit of email from Captain
Lisa R. Blackman, a clinical psychologist stationed at Al Udeid Air
Base in Qatar in October 2004:

Lately, I have had a string of combat-trauma evaluations. Several
have been Army troops passing through for R. and R. -- they come her
for a bit and then go back to Iraq or Afghanistan. As if this is a
glamorous vacation site. But they are grateful to be someplace safe
(and someplace with alcohol, which I will surely complain about at a
later date). Anyway, each one presented with a different
complaint. One guy wasn't sleeping, one gal was angry about "sexual
harassment" in her unit, one gal was depressed, one guy just wanted to
go home. Standard stuff.

I had no initial clue that the problems were combat-related and no
idea that I should be assessing for acute stress disorder or
P.T.S.D. None of these guys or gals said "I was in combat" or "I saw
someone die." None connected these experiences to their symptoms. It
was as if they didn't remember how hard and unusual it is to be at
war. They're used to the danger. They've been out here too long. Why
would a war mess with your mood, right?

Each evaluation started with the typical questions: "What brought
you in today?" "When did the problem start?" "Have you ever
experienced these symptoms before?" "How's your sleep?" etc., etc.,
etc. I kept asking questions and thinking that the symptoms did not
add up. Something wasn't right. I wasn't getting the right
reactions. Stories were incomplete. Affect was blunted. Level of
distress did not match presenting complaint. Alarm red, people, alarm
red.

At home I ask people if they have ever experienced or witnessed a
traumatic event or abuse. But out here I ask, "Have you ever been in
combat?" Apparently, this is a question with the power to unglue,
because all four of these troops burst into tears at the mention of
the word "combat."

And when I say burst, I mean splatter -- tears running, snot
flowing, and I literally had to mop my floor after one two-hour
session. In other words, I mean sobbing for minutes on end, unable to
speak, flat-out grief by an otherwise healthy, strong, manly guy who
watches football on the weekends and never puts the toilet seat
down.

Each time, I sit there with not a clue what to say . . . offering
tissues . . . saying i'm sorry . . . trying to normalize . . . trying
to say, "It was not your fault that so-and-so-died" and "If you could
have done differently, you would have" and "You had a right to be
scared." And, even worse, "You had to shoot back," and "Yes, you
killed someone, and you still deserve to go back to your family and
live your life."

Next time you are hanging out with a friend, think about what you
would do if he turned to you and said, "My boss made me kill someone,
and I know I'm going to Hell for it, so why bother?" What would you
say to "normalize" that?

I've been writing a post about Haditha, and is growing ugly as I
try to a few basic points: that war is counter to and incompatible
with how we, and everyone else, want to live their lives; that the
US military, pre-Rumsfeld any way, was geared against going to war,
and was broken from the moment Bush pushed them into harm's way;
that the Bush wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were the results of a
strictly political delusion about power and warmaking; that the
Pentagon was unable to resist the politicians' warpath because the
military had itself become politicized, allying itself with the
war party -- initially bipartisan, but increasingly Republican --
in order to preserve their bureaucracy after the end of the Cold
War rendered them obsolete; but no matter how the politicians try
to deny the fruitlessness of resolving differences by armed force,
the dysfunctionality of the military betrays them.

This quote helps to pinpoint some of the human cost of this or
any war -- in this case the unaccounted baggage US soldiers bring
back with them. This particular cost occurs because most American
soldiers never conceived of being put into a war like this, or any
war. They bought the argument that by training for war they would
keep us safe from attack, and they failed to grasp the idea that
by committing themselves to protect America they would be shipped
half way around the globe to attack someone else's country just
because a bunch of megalomaniacs in Washington got a hard on for
some oil wells. And even if they didn't mind the grab in theory,
nothing in their background prepared them for the experience.

That's basically because nothing in American life resembles war.
I was in Brooklyn when the World Trade Center fell on 9/11/2001 --
a tenth floor apartment, close enough we could see the burning towers,
at least until they fell. As CNN's tagling kept repeating "America
under attack" I tried to imagine what being under attack must have
really felt like, and how this stacked up. I thumbed through a book
of photos that summed up The 20th Century, a stretch of time
marked by horrific wars. I thought in particular about Sarajevo --
under longterm siege from Serbian artillery fired down into the city
from nearby hills -- and concluded that this was nothing like that.
One way one could tell was to check the expressions of the people
on the streets, trekking home on foot from their jobs in Manhattan:
they were shocked by what had happened, by what they had seen, but
three miles from ground zero they were no longer afraid. They may
have been attacked, but they weren't under attack. We have no
real concept of what it means to live inside a war zone, and that
helps us underestimate the effects of the wars we inflict on others.

Least of all are we able to see what those wars do to ourselves.
The common line on Haditha is that the Marines there "snapped" --
that they channeled their psychic trauma into wholesale slaughter.
One argues that incidents like that rare, the exception to the norm,
but what makes them rare is the complex combination of events that
leads them one way versus many others. The psychic trauma is far
more common -- the rare event is just the most undeniable proof of
how widespread it is. More typical is what the quote above shows.
The message ends as follows:

I can't stop thinking about the fact that these folks have lost
something that they will never get back -- innocence (and a life free
of guilt). My heart hurts for them.

Points on Haditha

Tom Engelhardt has written a useful summary on the
Haditha
incident, aka massacre. I have three points to add:

The Marines went door to door and killed everyone they found:
women, children, babies, the old, the infirm, everyone. There's a
word reserved for those rare cases when a government, an army, and/or its
agents kill everyone: genocide. The difference between Haditha and the
Holocaust is quantitative, not qualitative. It's a matter of scale, not
of process, and certainly not of law.

The US Marine Corps has to take this "incident" seriously. If they
don't separate and prosecute those responsible, they become complicit in
the act. And in doing so, they green light similar acts by more Marines,
turning what may well be an aberation into policy. But they have more to
worry about here than whatever the legal penalties may be for genocide,
complicity in genocide, and conspiracy to cover up genocide. If genocide
is not their policy -- presumably it is not, at least at this point --
permitting their soldiers to do it and not be fully punished will destroy
their chain of command, and as such their ability to act as instruments
of US policy. A Marine Corps that cannot discipline itself is a security
risk of the highest order, and should be abolished. This applies equally
to the US military command in Iraq, and to Centcom, of which the Marines
in Iraq are a significant part.

On the other hand, I have little doubt that the US public --
especially that part which has in the past voted for George W. Bush --
has no qualms whatsoever about the genocide at Haditha and will be
opposed to punishing in any way the Marines who carried out those
killings. Consequently, there will be political pressure to exonerate
the killers. One test of the integrity of the Marine Corps is whether
they will bend to that political pressure. Another test of integrity
is whether they follow the chain of command upwards to identify and
correct errors of ommission or commision that may have enabled or
facilitated such an act of genocide. In this, too, they will face
intense political pressure, although less so from the American people
than from the administration responsible for the war in the first
place. The problem here is however much the Bushmen like to play
war they're only real interest is politics, and their only skill
at that is pandering to their increasingly rabid base. The questions
are: will they destroy the military to feed their base, and will the
military let them?

Of course, this will take a while to play out, but the logic of
self-destruction is clear. A while back Martin van Creveld compared
the Bush invasion of Iraq to the disastrous Roman invasion of Germany
in 9 BCE when Augustus marched his legions into a swamp, losing them
all. The question to think about here is what such "disaster" might
actually look like. It certainly won't mean that US forces will be
butchered to the last man like the Roman legions were. But it may
well mean that the US military will have to give up on the Middle
East, never to threaten again. If so, there are two components to
this story: one is the dysfunctionality and utter ineptness of the
US military at doing anything constructive in the Middle East; the
other is growing domestic recognition of the costs of supporting
such a useless, parasitic organization.

The US military was built during the Cold War in opposition to
the Soviet Union. Up through the Vietnam War the military was built
to counter and roll back communist revolution. Nuclear intimidation
was a big part of this, but the military also engaged in peripheral
wars like Korea and Vietnam, numerous smaller counterinsurgencies
(often through proxies), subversion of undesired regimes, aid for
friendly dictators, and ubiquitous propaganda. As such, the battle
lines were drawn on two axes: geographically, where the aim was to
isolate the Soviet Block, and economically, where the US universally
supported capital vs. labor.

After Vietnam, the US military made a strategic retrenchment:
magnifying the Soviet threat, they focused on nuclear deterrence
while shying away from ground wars in any way similar to Vietnam.
The Army was restructured to depend on Reserves for ground wars,
making it politically more difficult to commit troops. The Powell
Doctrine insisted on overwhelming force and a clear exit strategy.
The effect was to make all but the easiest wars unwageable: the
threshhold was topped in invasions of Grenada, Panama, and Kuwait,
all of which were routs. But more important than the overwhelming
force employed was the fact that US invaders left as quickly as
they came. In Iraq, as in Vietnam, they stuck around long enough
to wear out their welcome.

The thing we should be clear about is that the US military was
built to avoid wars, not to fight them -- and least of all were
they meant to manage an imperial outpost over a hostile civilian
population. In other words, the military isn't fit for purpose:
it has no function other than bureaucratic self-preservation. On
the other hand, that didn't matter much because nobody actually
wanted to attack the US. Nor were post-Vietnam US presidents all
that trigger happy, at least until the Russia backed out of the
Cold War. The military's problem should have been obvious: how do
you justify spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a toy-filled
lifestyle that serves no useful purpose? How they did this gets off
the point, and should be familiar anyway, but one piece of the story
does need to be emphasized here: the military's survival mission was
fought mostly in Congress, backed by their corporate lobbyists and
the media. In this struggle they formed a fateful pro-war political
alliance -- initially bipartisan, but inreasingly bound up with the
agendas of the Republican Right. One consequence of this was that
the military itself became politicized, and that has proven to be
profoundly corrupting.

We see this especially in Rumsfeld promoting yes men as generals,
but it's been going on a lot longer than that. Up through WWII every
American war was followed by massive cutbacks, but since the 1947
Cold War build-up the Pentagon has established itself as permanent --
a fact that has depended on political blessings all along the line.
The idea that defense is only needed in times of real hostility has
been replaced by fear of such permanent threats as class struggle
and islam. This relationship between the military and their political
supporters would be a mere scam except for one thing: the military
build-up and the arrogance of power it feeds elicits resistance, a
positive feedback since it increases the threat that the military
is promoted to defend against. The War on Terror carries this fear
and threat cycle to especially absurd dimensions precisely because
the military is so scared, so inept, and so reckless.

But increasingly the whole scam is at risk. The costs of running
an endless global war on terrorism pile up while the benefits are
less and less clear. And that's where true distaster for the war
party, military and their political supporters alike, lies. If we
wise up to the idea that they are our own worst enemy, the days of
their self-serving wars will be numbered. That hasn't happened yet,
and judging from the lack of mainstream political articulation of
these points we have a ways to go. But embarrassments like Haditha,
like Abu Ghraib, like Guantanamo, like the CIA secret prisons and
kidnappings, like the NSA wiretapping, like the growing air war,
like the civil war the US has promoted as divide and conquer --
all those things add up, and as they do more folks conclude that
something in this whole scheme isn't right. And one way all this
takes a toll short of a political sea change is in the volunteer
staffing of the military itself -- down steadily since the Iraq
war started, and headed further down.

Haditha reminds us that war creates atrocities, even genocide.
It puts soldiers into a bind where their options are limited to
kill or be killed, and so they kill. The distinctions between when
such behavior is authorized and when it is proscribed break down
under the pressure to achieve victory or to avoid defeat. And as
they break down, the political and military command breaks down,
making those soldiers useless -- dangerous even -- for implementing
policy. Policy itself breaks down, becoming schizophrenic. This
schizophrenia unhinges military discipline, ultimately destroying
policy credibility. The idea that the US can possibly do any good
in Iraq is constantly belied by such atrocities.

What makes this problem intractable for the military is that
there is popular political support in the US for such atrocities.
Moreover, the military has become so politicized and so politically
savvy that it can't help but reflect that support. Popular backing
for the war was fed by fear and galvanized into hatred -- the idea
that we invaded Iraq not to conquer but to liberate is as much a
sick joke here in America as in Baghdad. War is us versus them, and
us are our soldiers on the ground, and if in the heat of battle
those soldiers kill everyone in sight, who are we to judge them?
They are, after all, us, and if we were in their shoes, we'd most
likely do the same thing. Moreover, those who would seek to
discipline our soldiers don't have such clean hands either: the
killing of non-combatants by air strikes is so common it has to
be calculated into the command decision, which makes it policy.

Of course, we've been through all this before, back in Vietnam.
We should have learned these lessons then, but they were artfully
swept under the rug. The main way this happened was that the focus
of the war was shifted from Vietnam to the US: the war became a
purely political issue, played out for the domestic vote where
the symbols of nationalism could be knee-jerked for the right.
The war itself was a lost cause, but failure could be protracted
indefinitely with negotiation ploys and bombing escalations, while
troop withdrawals seemed to lighten the burden. The turning point
in Vietnam was probably the Tet Offensive in 1968, with everything
after that a political sham of one sort or another. Iraq's turning
point was the May 2004 uprisings in Fallujah and Najaf, which set
off a furious round of spin control in the Rove campaign. Thus
far it's sort of worked, but the intrinsic problems remain close
to the surface. You can't kill for peace, torture for freedom,
raze a nation to make it prosperous. You can't defend a nation
by terrifying your neighbors. And it's not just what you do to
others that hurts; doing it hurts yourself in kind.

An unfinished fragment from an early draft of the above post:

The decision to restructure the military so that large wars
can only be fought by calling up Reserves was intended to make it
impossible for the US to fight counterguerrila wars like Vietnam.
The Reserves have neither the training nor the temperament for such
wars -- for them, war must be brief and exit secure. Ignoring these
limits resulted in numerous mistakes which compounded to worsen the
occupation while building political pressure to withdraw. One more
consequence of the misapplication of the Reserves is that they will
wither away.

The post-Vietnam professional military was developed as a
deterrent force: its purpose was to intimidate the Soviet Union
and whoever else to make sure that no one was stupid enough to
attack us. It was never meant to be used, and least of all to be
used as in an imperial occupation. It is not even clear how fit
the military was to its original purpose, since all it had to do
was deter countries who had no desire to attack us anyway. This
created a false sense of security that was instantly panicked by
throwing the military into a real war. That they would overkill
and overreact was inevitable.

The entire war program was predicated on a political will
that required that the military ignore the real risks of war --
indeed, forget the hard-learned lessons of Vietnam. Acknowledgment
of those risks would have shown that the project was doomed, or at
least too expensive to entertain. This was only possible because
the military brass itself had become corrupted by participation in
politics, including alliance with a bipartisan but increasingly
Republican war party. The run-up to the Iraq war went further than
ignoring risks and not planning for contingencies; it permitted
strategies that predictably undermined US authority in the postwar
period. (One such example is using the Kurdish Peshmerga to occupy
Kirkuk.) Moreover, as the war ground on Rumsfeld has continued to
politicize the military. This politicization exposes them to real
political opposition for the first time in the post-WWII period --
while it hasn't happened yet, as the deceits and failures come
clear it is very much in the cards.

Finally, the following are the Jazz CG notes for the Jazz CG #9
surplus file:

Anders Aarum Trio: Absence in Mind (2002-03 [2004],
Jazzaway).
Norwegian piano trio. Aarum has shown up on several albums
lately, and he always make a good impression. One thing I've learned
is that good piano trios are trios: the bass and drums matter in a
way that is more/less as important as the piano. They prop each other
up, and the successful ones work as a unit. Much of the most effective
work here comes with the drummer in the lead -- stretched out, very
abstract, exceptionally interesting. The drummer is Thomas Stønen,
another name to keep on file. The bassist is Mats Eilertsen -- don't
recall him from elsewhere, but he holds up his end as well.
B+(***)

Mario Adnet & Zé Nogueira Present Moacir Santos: Choros
& Alegria (2005, Adventure Music).
Pushing 80, Santos is a legendary arranger and saxophonist in
Brazil. But he only appears here with a few vocals, by far the least
appealing aspect of an album of subtly orchestrated pieces based on
Santos arrangements dating as far back as 1942. Much of this is very
appealing.
B+(**)

Ahleuchatistas: What You Will (2005 [2006], Cuneiform).
Punk rockers who listen to Charlie Parker too much --
check the name -- and evidently don't know anyone up for singing.
I'm not much for vocals either, but when you lay out titles like
"Remember Rumsfeld at Abu Ghraib," "Ho Chi Minh Is Gonna Win!"
(reality check: he did), "Last Spark From God," "What Are You
Gonna Do?" -- these could use some more development.
B+(*)

Monty Alexander: Concrete Jungle: The Music of Bob Marley
(2005 [2006], Telarc).
This looked certain to be a disaster, and not
just because his last Jamaican effort, Rocksteady, was so awful.
Marley stikes me as tough to jazz up, much like Stevie Wonder. Tossing
a lot of guests and vocalists into the mix isn't promising either --
in particular, it runs a strong risk of turning into second-hand easy
listening. Some of this does, and the three vocal tracks are especially
lame, but there are points where this connects. Usually, these are the
simplest cuts, like the piano-bass-drums on "Forever Lovin' Jah." Even
better is the piano-trombone juxtaposition on "Simmer Down," with
Delfeayo Marsalis.
B

Marcos Amorim: Sete Capelas (Seven Chapels) (2005
[2006], Adventure Music).
One thing that makes Brazilian guitarists
sound so much alike is the soft chime of nylon strings; matched with
bass, drums and flutes, this veers close to stereotypical samba, a
mild seasoning that disguises its cleverness with innuendo. It does
help when the pace picks up a bit.
B+(**)

Scott Anderson/Nia Quintet: End of Time (2004 [2005],
BluJazz).
Skillfully executed postbop in the classic quintet format
with Daniel Nicholson's saxophones and Tom Vaitsas' piano complementing
the leader's trumpet. Mostly upbeat, sometimes soaring, with a nice
ballad to close. Those with mainstream tastes will find much to enjoy
here. Those looking for some edge will doubt it, but such albums are
rarer than you'd think.
B+(**)

Susie Arioli Band Featuring Jordan Officer: Learn to Smile
Again (2005, Justin Time).
She's an interpretive singer
with no particular stylistic affinities -- AMG lists her styles
as: blues, western swing, swing, mainstream jazz, standards. This
album, her fourth, is built around six Roger Miller songs -- not
the ones you know, just sad little gems: "Less and Less," "Husbands
and Wives," "Half a Mind," "A Million Years or So," "A World I Can't
Live In," "Don't We All Have the Right." Officer accompanies her on
guitar, a simple but elegant foil, emphasized in two instrumentals.
Other people appear in the credits, but they work modestly in the
background. Don't know her other albums, which presumably swing
harder. This one mostly lilts, touchingly with Miller, majestically
on Naomi Neville's "Ruler of My Heart" (a big hit for Irma Thomas).
B+(**)

Jeff Arnal, Seth Misterka, Reuben Radding, Nate Wooley:
Transit (2001 [2006], Clean Feed).
Group name seems to be Transit. Percussionist Arnal seems to be the
leader, but the artist names are listed alphabetically, and the
compositions are credited to all four, so the group is even
balanced. Still, it makes sense to focus on Arnal, who provides a
dependable anchor for the mischief, and whose drum sound is the most
distinctive thing here. At first approximation, this is loose and
rather hoary free improv -- at times exciting, galvanizing even, at
times a bit much, then interesting again.
B+(*)

Michaël Attias: Credo (1999 [2005], Clean Feed).
Brief bio: born Israel 1968, Moroccan parents, grew up in France,
played violin as a child before taking up alto sax, moved to New
York in 1994, studied with Lee Konitz and Anthony Braxton. Attias
has been a steady sideman downtown, composes, released his "first"
album early in 2005, a fine trio called Renku with John
Hebert and Satoshi Takeishi. Now comes an earlier set, a complex
series of trio, quartet and sextet pieces -- where the later album
is elegant in its simplicity, this one is as tangled as his roots.
He explains these pieces referring to Israel, France and Morocco,
but "Hot Mountain Song"'s fiddle reminds me more of the Ozarks,
and the Torah-based "Berechit" sounds to me, and perhaps to bassist
Chris Lightcap, like old-time Mingus.
B+(**)

Michaël Attias: Renku (2005, Playscape).
With John Hebert and Satoshi Takeishi, who more than hold up their end
of this studiously avant sax trio. Attias plays soprano, alto and
baritone -- the latter, perhaps because it's relatively rare, or
perhaps because it weighs so much more, makes for the most interesting
parts. Perhaps the variety loosens the focus, but loose and open-ended
is the idea.
B+(**)

Albert Ayler: Spiritual Unity (1964 [2005], ESP-Disk).
One of the landmarks of the '60s avant-garde -- Ayler's defining
moment, but also a high point in the careers of trio mates Gary
Peacock and Sunny Murray, who never falter and never intrude on
Ayler's rapid-fire inspiration; "Ghosts" rises with a memorable head,
then rises again at the end in a second variation; short at 29:21,
uncluttered by filler.
A

Albert Ayler: Bells / Prophecy (1964-65 [2005], ESP-Disk).
Prophecy was recorded a month before Spiritual Unity,
with same trio and same songs, for all intents a dry run;
Bells, recorded a year later with extra fire-power in Donald
Ayler's trumpet and Charles Tyler's, was originally issued as a 19:54
one-sided LP, a relatively clean glimpse of the brothers' future
groups.
A-

Albert Ayler: Slugs' Saloon (1966 [2005], ESP-Disk, 2CD).
A quintet, with the Ayler brothers in powerful form and Michel
Samson's violin for contrast and complexity; the big pieces are rough
hewn, playful, disorderly, subversive, and rather tough going, which
is about par for this stage.
B+(*)

The Bad Plus: Suspicious Activity? (2005, Columbia).
When Francis Davis proposed writing about this for the Voice last
year, he said something about taking the opportunity to sort out his
misgivings over the group. He wound up hanging this on his year-end
list. I really dug their previous three albums, but didn't connect
to this one at all. Finally figured out why: this is where Iverson
finally got to turn the tables and go classical on his grunge-head
trio mates -- if not quite Rachmaninoff, at least Uri Caine with
extra muscle on bass and drums. Davis likes classical music. I don't.
B

Roni Ben-Hur: Signature (2004 [2005], Reservoir).
Like its predecessor, an elegant mainstream guitar album. No saxophone
this time, leaving more space for pianist John Hicks.
B+(**)

Sathima Bea Benjamin: Musical Echoes (2002 [2006], Ekapa).
A set of carefully measured standards sung by the South
African vocalist, in a return to Capetown after a long exile.
The pianist and co-producer is Stephen Scott, in fine form. The
others are South Africans: bassist Basil Moses, whose clear pulse
is one of the highlights, and drummer Lulu Gontsana. Well done,
and welcome to anyone who remembers her early work with the former
Dollar Brand and their surprise mentor, someone named Ellington.
B+(*)

Will Bernard Trio: Directions to My House (2004 [2005],
Direct to Disk).
Guitar-bass-drums, with a couple of guest shots that don't make much of
a difference. Bernard's an interesting guitar player -- very electric.
B+(**)

John Bishop: Nothing If Not Something (2004 [2006],
Origin).
This is a trio with Rick Mandyck on alto sax, Jeff Johnson
on bass, and Bishop on drums. Aside from one group credit, Mandyck
has four songs, Johnson two, and Bishop zero. But Bishop owns the
label, which counts for something. Origin was founded in Seattle in
1997 to give Bishop's home town jazz scene an outlet, and now has
something like 85 records, plus more on their co-op OA2 label.
Until they started mailing to me, I doubt that I've heard of as
many as five artists on their roster. Obviously, as jazz scenes
go, New York is in a class by itself. The second tier definitely
includes Chicago, maybe a couple more (Philadelphia? Detroit? San
Francisco-Oakland? Boston?), and aside from New Orleans, where
jazz had become a tourist business, that's about where national
consciousness stops. Beyond that there are probably a dozen cities
comparable to Seattle, virtually unknown to anyone who doesn't live
there. Portland and Vancouver are two I know a bit about. Seattle
is new to me, but this is a good start. Mandyck has a clear, cutting
tone, and interesting postbop ideas. Johnson and Bishop are solid
supporters, and their solos hold up. I doubt that any of them would
blow folks away in New York, but they more than hold their own here.
B+(**)

Terence Blanchard: Flow (2004 [2005], Blue Note).
This is an ambitious and complex album. At bottom it's built out of
synth programming, with more conventional instruments twisting upward
to Blanchard's bright trumpet. This gives it more ebb than flow, the
former employed for dramatic effect. Indeed, few jazz composers put
more into shaping their music into drama. In the end this pays off
impressively, but there are many false starts along the way, the
most annoying of which are Lionel Loueke's mumbo jumbo vocals.
B

Karen Blixt: Spin This (2006, Hi-Fli).
This album
contrasts rather sharply with the Erin Boheme one. The similarities
include a shuttling in and out of guests and a few originals (with
co-writers) slipped in amongst the standards. Also a fairly generous
booklet with a lot of photography. On the other hand, the hair, makeup
and photography budgets are far removed. Boheme has the more intriguing
voice, but it's clear that her corporate sponsors selected her as much
for her looks, which became the focus of their marketing campaign.
I wouldn't describe Blixt as ugly, but plain isn't far off the mark,
and her voice isn't much above that. But she also appears much happier
in her photos, and that carries through to the album. Her guests are
more fun, too -- especially organist Joey DeFrancesco, who also takes
a duet vocal on a cheery "When You're Smiling." It also helps that the
covers are old friends -- it's not like we need another "Night and
Day," but it's always welcome.
B+(**)

Erin Boheme: What Love Is (2006, Concord).
She could
become a substantial star, but at this point you can still see the
price tags on the fancy packaging. Credits include Hair & Makeup,
Stylist, Art Direction, and Package Design. Nominally a jazz singer,
this is roughly half standards, half originals, the latter co-credits.
Musicians come and go, including four pianists, two guitarists, four
bassists, four drummers, and three conductors for countless strings.
Horns only appear for the lightest of blush, with young stablemate
Christian Scott on trumpet for four cuts and old studio hack Tom Scott
on sax for two. She has a distinctive voice, girlish and coquettish.
B

Don Braden: Workin' (2005 [2006], HighNote).
Braden strikes me as a rather fancy saxophonist to get stuck in
a simple organ trio. That he does two pieces solo indicates he
concurs, but his previous record was little different: the same
group plus a trombone. Braden's a flashy mainstream player --
nice tone, lots of moves, a pleasure to listen to. He shows
all that here, but he's shown it many times before, and there's
nothing special this time.
B+(*)

Anouar Brahem: Le Voyage de Sahar (2005 [2006], ECM).
The Tunisian's oud is less engaging and more atmospheric
than the Lebanese Rabih Abou-Khalil. The easy explanation might
be producer Manfred Eicher, who does tend to soften and blur,
but I suspect that Abou-Khalil frames his work more thoroughly
in the improvisatory tradition of Arabic music, which leads him to
look for similar qualities in his European collaborators. Brahem,
on the other hand, fits more snugly into European frameworks --
here working with piano and accordion from Provence, for a light,
folkish, but smooth mix. It is, at least, quite attractive.
B+(*)

Bonnie Bramlett and Mr. Groove Band: Roots, Blues &
Jazz (2005 [2006], Zoho Roots).
I feel bad panning this.
It really is good hearing her voice again -- thicker and heavier,
to be sure, but it still has that gospel lift. And to be sure,
she brings more conviction to "Love the One You're With" than
I thought possible these days. But that's a big part of the
problem: the song selection is way too catholic for someone
with such specific talents. And her new friends don't have the
touch her old Friends had, either.
B

Cecil Brooks III: Double Exposure (2000 [2006], Savant).
A drums-organ duo seems like an odd thing to do, but the
liner notes point to a 1978 precedent that paired up Joe Chambers
and Larry Young. I haven't heard that one, but it seems fair to say
that the organist this time, Gene Ludwig, is no Larry Young. Brooks
may not compare all that well to Chambers either, but that's harder
to say. Actually, putting aside those questions, this pairing has
some charm and interest. But it's still a pretty limited framework.
B

Marion Brown: Marion Brown (1965 [2005], ESP-Disk).
Brown's first, previously known as Marion Brown Quartet or
Marion Brown Quintet -- you can imagine the confusion --
with not always the same three of these four pieces. The second
horn, either Alan Shorter or Bennie Maupin, matters little. Same
for the choice of bassists, but drummer Rashied Ali does make a
difference. This fixes various errors in previous editions,
including all four songs with all six musicians -- even spelling
their names right. Remastered, this still sounds fresh, the debut
of an important but still relatively unknown avant-garde figure.
A-

Bill Bruford/Michiel Borstlap: Every Step a Dance, Every Word a
Song (2003-04 [2004], Summerfold).
AMG, in one of those
mysteries that arise from having too many chimps typing too fast,
classifies Dutch pianist Borstlap as R&B/Funk/Fusion, but they
also have an entry for him in their classical database. Here he's
playing acoustic piano duets with Bill Bruford, who AMG classifies
as Rock/Avant-Garde/Fusion/Post-Bop/Canterbury Scene. My guess is
that Borstlap comes out of a solid classical background but likes
to experiment, which throws him into the jazz realm. Bruford, of
course, was prog rock's most famous drummer (except, I guess, for
Phil Collins), having worked for Yes, King Crimson, and (replacing
Collins) Genesis, but really he's concentrated on jazz ever since
he hooked up with Django Bates and Iain Ballamy to form Earthworks
in 1986. And this, certainly, is a jazz record, with two razor sharp
performers improvising in concert -- meaning, both together and
live. One of the more prickly versions of "Bemsha Swing" I've heard
recently, with "'Round Midnight" being the only other cover, and
the title cut improvised from nothing more than its title.
B+(**)

Bill Bruford/Tim Garland: Earthworks Underground Orchestra
(2005 [2006], Summerfold).
A 20th anniversary shindig for Bruford's
"particularly British sort of institution, this takes Earthworks pieces
from the first through last albums and scales them up to a largish
group of nine pieces, or ten when Robin Eubanks adds a second trombone.
Bruford strikes me as a supremely adaptable drummer -- before moving
into jazz he held down the drum seats in what seems like most of the
UK's famous prog rock outfits, but his jazz groups have little or no
fusion feel, and the groups with Iain Ballamy and Django Bates veered
toward the avant-garde. But this one builds around Garland, such a
slick, loquacious reedist-flautist that he's managed to get featured
billing. This one is fast and lush -- not my favorite combination,
but impressive when it all comes together.
B+(*)

James Carter Organ Trio: Out of Nowhere (2004 [2005],
Half Note).
On reading first reports that Carter was working with an
organ trio I imagined a postmodern synthesis of Gene Ammons, Willis
Jackson and Stanley Turrentine, able to go hard or soft, fast or slow,
and to throw in more than a few of his trademark pops and clicks
along the way. This doesn't deliver on my expectations, but it makes
amends when guests James "Blood" Ulmer and Hamiett Bluiett show up.
Ulmer sings "Little Red Rooster," but his guitar is even more welcome.
Bluiett caps the show.
B+(**)

Michael Carvin: Marsalis Music Honors Michael Carvin
(2005 [2006], Marsalis Music/Rounder).
This is one of two new albums
Branford Marsalis has produced featuring important but relatively
unheralded drummers. (The other one is Jimmy Cobb.) Presumably this
launches a series. Certainly there's no shortage of musicians who
could use the commercial clout Marsalis brings to the party. But
the decision to frame both albums as quartets (sax, piano, bass,
drums) takes the focus away from the honored drummers, fudging the
presumed point. Carvin has been working steadily since 1970, with
six previous albums under his own name, plus many appearances. (How
many isn't clear. His website claims "over 150," but I only count
34 on AMG's credits list.) I know him mostly for a 1974 duo album
with Jackie McLean where he pulled out all the stops and played up
a storm. But this one is mild mainstream, with "In Walked Bud" the
most upbeat and a long, slow "You Go to My Head" getting no more
than a light brush treatment. Marcus Strickland plays sax.
B

Oscar Castro-Neves: All One (2006, Mack Avenue).
A veteran Brazilian guitarist -- his credits go back to the '60s,
including a song "Morrer de Amor" written in 1965 and reprised
here with Luciana Souza singing. This album takes a grand tour
through his life and work, but it is never more engaging than
when his guitar is out front. Gary Meek adds the flighty flutes,
clarinets and saxes you expect. Souza sings two pieces, but his
own rough vocal on "The Very Thought of You" is more touching.
B+(**)

Concord Picante: 25th Anniversary Sampler (1980-2003
[2005], Concord).
Not a product -- just a promo only sampler from a
4-CD box set. Concord's Latin label became a welcome port for many
long established, perhaps even over-the-hill, Latin jazz stars --
names here include Cal Tjader, Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente, Ray
Barretto, Poncho Sanchez, Eddie Palmieri. I'm not a big fan of
mainstream salsa, label comps, or what I've previously heard on
Picante, but this is consistently enjoyable fare. Maybe I'll get
a chance to hear the real box some time.
B+(*)

George Cotsirilos: On the Rebop (2005 [2006], OA2).
Guitar trio, with a slightly dull tone to the guitar, and a mildly
boppish vibe overall -- most tellingly on "Anthropology." Nice but
rather slight.
B

Critters Buggin': Stampede (2004, Ropeadope).
Electro-funk stretched in various directions, including out when
Skerik gets down on his tenor sax, and Moroccan when Bachir and
Mustafa Attar pump up the jajouka on the closer. I could go for
more sax, but even when Skerik switches to keyboards the funk
isn't faked -- it isn't even on the one.
B+(**)

The Eddie Daniels Quartet: Mean What You Say
(2005 [2006], IPO).
Plays clarinet and tenor sax. I'm not familiar with his
work, which goes back to a 1966 album and includes a stretch with the
Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra. He appears to have had some pop items
in his closet, but this one is solidly mainstream, benefitting from
a rhythm section that guarantees its interest: Hank Jones on piano,
Richard Davis on bass, Kenny Washington on drums. Starts with a Thad
Jones piece, continuing with a range of bop-to-swing standards and
one original. Solid playing throughout.
B+(*)

Miles Davis: The Cellar Door Sessions 1970 (1970 [2005],
Columbia/Legacy, 6CD).
Following the Blackhawk and Plugged Nickel boxes, another attempt to
find hidden insights and fungibles by filling in missing pieces to a
well-worn live record. *Live/Evil* was edited from the last night of
Davis's four-day Cellar Door stand, with John McLaughlin providing
extra juice. The last two discs here present the unedited sets, but
they're pretty much interchangeable with the ones you already know.
The first four are sets from the previous three nights. Without
McLaughlin, the young band -- Birdophile Gary Bartz was the oldest
at 30 and funk bassist Michael Henderson the youngest at 19 -- was
even looser and friskier, with Keith Jarrett's toy keybs the most
revelatory. In general, I find vault gems less interesting than new
fare, but this hard-assed jazz-funk is a strain that no one else
ever developed further, so even its old scraps still seem new.
A-

Delirium: Eclexistence (2005, TUM).
Two horns (Mikko Innanen on various saxes and Kasper Tranberg on cornet),
no piano, bass and drums. Drummer Stefan Pasborg also plays in the rockish
organ trio Ibrahim Electric. Pasborg and Innanen also play in Triot, which
has another excellent album on TUM. The booklet compares this group to
quartets by Ornette Coleman and Tomasz Stanko/Edward Vesala.
B+(**)

Dr. John: Right Place, Right Time (1989 [2006],
Skinji Brim/Hyena).
Second installment in the Doc's series of
private tapes, following the self-explanatory All By Hisself
with a set at Tipitina's on a Mardi Gras night with a searing
hot band adding much volume but little light.
B

Tommy Dorsey: The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing: Centennial
Collection (1925-56 [2005], Bluebird/Legacy, 3CD).
Born 1905, hence the centennial. Died 1956, a few months after the
last cut here, an Ernie Wilkins arrangement of "Heartbreak Hotel"
with Elvis Presley singing. Nowadays Dorsey is mainly remembered
for another singer, his 1940-42 boy singer, Frank Sinatra. At the
time he ran one of the most successful dance bands in America.
Sinatra, Jo Stafford, and the Pied Pipers are prominent on the
third disc here, built from air shots and sequenced like a radio
program -- surely most Americans' perception of him, but it's the
least interesting disc, more history than timeless entertainment.
The other two discs try to make the case for Dorsey as a jazz
musician. The first ransacks the vaults for sideman appearances --
several cuts with his more Dixieland-oriented brother, saxophonist
Jimmy Dorsey; groups with Eddie Lang, Red Nichols, and Red Allen;
and dates with singers like Ethel Waters, Connie Boswell, Bing
Crosby, and Mildred Bailey. Dorsey played trombone, and the disc
is a broad sampler of 1925-40 New York jazz. The second disc moves
on to Dorsey's Orchestra and his Clambake Seven small group, and it
gets stronger as the disc progresses, as he picks up musicians like
Charlie Shavers and Buddy Rich. They also work in a pair of cuts
with Dorsey and Duke Ellington playing with each other's bands, but
the most welcome cut is "Trombonology," where he takes a rare, and
pretty solid, trombone lead.
A-

Dave Douglas: Keystone (2005, Greenleaf Music).
I held this back, figuring I should watch the DVD to see the 1916
Fatty Arbuckle film that Douglas wrote this music for. Didn't help
me a whole lot, but it's an interesting piece of silent slapstick.
The music suffers from the usual soundtrack taint, but DJ Olive
pushes the beats, Marcus Strickland can wail, and the most upbeat
material sweeps you away like Fatty and Mabel's cabin.
B+(***)

Dave Douglas: Meaning and Mystery (2006, Greenleaf Music).
This is the sort of record I don't much like, done by folks
too good to dismiss out of hand. Reportedly the third album by "this
quintet" -- Donny McCaslin replaces Chris Potter from The Infinite
(2002), but I'm not sure what the other one is, unless he's counting
the Bill Frisell-enriched Strange Liberation (2003 -- one of
the few Douglas albums I've missed). Uri Caine plays Fender Rhodes,
a bit like a Formula One driver whipping a monster truck around, a
skill that few have let alone make something of. James Genus and
Clarence Penn round out the line-up. As a composer, Douglas works
in his most complex, convoluted mode, which puts it way beyond what
I can follow, much less comprehend. As a trumpeter he is without
peer, as usual. McCaslin is, if anything, even slicker than Potter.
So it's a fucking tour de force. So what?
B+(*)

The Dutch Jazz Orchestra: The Lady Who Swings the Band:
Rediscovered Music of Mary Lou Williams (2005 [2006], Challenge).
Historically notable as an effort to put unrecorded
charts to music. If it sounds exceptionally Ellington-esque, one
reason may be that the Dutch Jazz Orchestra has made a cottage
industry out of Billy Strayhorn. Another is that Williams wrote
several of these arrangements for Ellington right after Strayhorn
died. Not sure this transcends its historical significance, but
it sometimes comes close. Francis Davis wrote about this and the
Zodiac Suite album in the Voice.
B+(**)

Peter Eldridge: Decorum (2005, www.petereldridge.com).
Singer-songwriter -- AMG calls him a "melodic poet" -- but eventually
you have to concede him ground as a jazz singer, if for nothing else
than the way he forces his words around melodies that don't fit. In
fact, he's only a load of scat short of affecting all of the things
that annoy me most in male jazz singers.
C

Bill Evans: The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings,
1961 (1961 [2005], Riverside, 3CD).
Evans isn't a particularly easy jazz pianist to "get," and I've never
been sure that I do get him. I've read about how emotional his playing
is, but I've never managed to unpack the music to find its emotional
center, if indeed there is one. He's a very introverted stylist, shy
with his left hand, but with an undeniable melodic knack. Still, even
without any real sense of comprehension, his two live albums recorded
on June 25, 1961 struck me as near perfect: Waltz for Debby,
and especially Sunday at the Village Vanguard. I don't mean to
discount Evans, but equally important here are bassist Scott LaFaro
and drummer Paul Motian. LaFaro was killed in a car accident ten days
later, so this is his testament, and much of his legend. Motian is
still working on a long career which includes support for many of the
finest pianists of our age -- he's worth focusing on here. This box
straightens out the context: five sets, everything in order. Most of
what was passed over in the original releases have appeared as bonus
tracks, so there's very little new here: a false start, some patter,
a third take of "All of You."
A-

The Alon Farber Hagiga Quintet: Exposure (2003
[2005], Fresh Sound New Talent).
Looks like "hagiga" is Hebrew
for "celebration" -- dumb luck that I figured that out. This is
an upbeat, postbop Israeli group, with two saxophones (Farber on
soprano and alto, Hagai Amir on alto), guitar, bass and drums,
with New York-based Israeli trumpeter Avishai Cohen guesting on
three cuts. They state the music is inspired by Wayne Shorter
and Dave Douglas, which sounds close enough, although I'll also
note that one song is called "A Chat With Ornette." Complex and
fluid, a rich feel, lots of movement. Cohen certainly earns his
featured slot.
B+(**)

Béla Fleck & the Flecktones: The Hidden Land (2006,
Columbia).
Jeff Coffin tips this over into jazz and
maybe even jazz-world fusion territory with a cornucopia of reeds
and flutes signifying as marginal exotica. Fleck's antique banjos
aren't really flexible enough to make his mark in bebop, so he falls
back into the rhythm section, which is where banjo belongs. The
rhythm is interesting too, but the achievement still leaves me
with doubts, about where they've come from, where they're going,
and why it matters. A pretty good album from a group I've never
really trusted.
B+(*)

Free Fall: Amsterdam Funk (2004 [2005], Smalltown
Superjazz).
This is Ken Vandermark's clone of the Jimmy Giuffre Trio
(named for Giuffre's most famous album), so the lineup is clarinet,
piano (Håvard Wiik for Paul Bley) and bass (Ingebrigt Håker Flaten
for Steve Swallow). I've played this several times but haven't made
much sense out of it -- possibly because the mappings are off, and
possibly because I've never gotten much out of Guiffre's trio. This
has spots of interest -- mostly when they pick up the pace and Wiik
pounds out some rhythm. It also has quiet spots which develop into
austere atmospherics.
B+(*)

Fred Frith/Carla Kihlstedt/Stevie Wishart: The Compass, Log,
and Lead (2003 [2006], Intakt).
Wishart plays hurdy-gurdy,
a contraption that makes sounds by cranking a wheel against a string,
with keys to peck out a melody and extra strings droning rhythmically.
It's presumably the source of the drone that underlies Frith's guitar
and Kihlstedt's violin, although Wishart's credits also include
electronics, which could be anything. The pieces are pure improv,
melanges of string sounds with curious curves and haphazard shapes,
more interesting for their sonic overlap than structure, although
I can't say there is none.
B+(**)

Cor Fuhler: Corkestra (2004, Data).
Large (nine-piece) group of Dutch avantists, this at times has a comic
touch that seems to be an especially Dutch trait. Fuhler plays organ,
clavinet and piano -- lists them in that order. Ab Baars plays tenor
sax and clarinet, and is worth listening for. The rest of the group
does not include Han Bennink, although it's a safe bet that Michael
Vatcher has studies some of the master's mischief. I especially like
a piece called "Rockpool" which relentlessly builds to a crescendo
that never comes about.
B+(**)

Satoko Fujii Quartet: Angelona (2004 [2006], Libra).
Fujii and her trumpeter-husband Natsuki Tamura are very prolific,
working in a wide range of groups including several quartets. This
one reprises Zephyros, easily my favorite of the ten or so
albums I've heard thus far, in large part because electric bassist
Takeharu Hayakawa kept the propulsion in high gear. Hayakawa is far
less central here -- in fact, the rhythm section doesn't particularly
distinguish itself in any way this time. Fortunately, this is where
Tamura, who had previously struck me as by far the more conservative
stylist, steps up big time. Fujii also impresses, especially on the
Tayloresque splashes that rough up the opener. The result is an album
that flirts with greatness but doesn't quite deliver it. That's about
par as far as I've managed to figure out.
B+(**)

Satoko Fujii Four: Live in Japan 2004 (2004 [2005],
P.J.L).
Not to be confused with the Satoko Fujii Quartet, which has
two Japanese musicians on bass-drums and takes more of a fusion slant.
This group has Mark Dresser on bass and Jim Black on drums for a more
avant pairing. The four pieces include the 36:28 "Illusion Suite,"
recently on an album of that name, by the same group minus trumpeter
Natsuki Tamura. Lots of good parts. I'm especially impressed by Black
this time around.
B+(**)

Jacob Garchik: Abstracts (2004 [2005], Yestereve).
Garchik is a trombonist based in New York, plays in a large number
of local groups, including a few I've heard of. This is a trio with
Jacob Sacks on piano and Dan Weiss on drums. The eight pieces are
designated Abstracts, numbers 1-8. Free jazz, sharply played, the
instrumental mix interesting.
B+(**)

Gato Libre: Strange Village (2004 [2005], Onoff).
File this one under trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, who wrote all the
pieces. His partner Satoko Fujii is also present in the quartet,
but playing accordion instead of her usual piano. The difference
between the two is that she can get a lot noisier than Tamura --
at times she approaches Cecil Taylor intensity, although that's
hardly the only tool in her bag. Tamura, on the other hand, tends
to play within himself, drawing out the lyrical quality of his
instrument. Fujii's accordion has none of the flash of her piano,
but the tones complement Tamura nicely. The other two members of
the group are Kazuhiko Tsumura on guitar and Norikatsu Koreyasu
on bass, providing a bed of strings for the others. A beguiling
recording.
B+(**)

The Jeff Gauthier Goatette: One and the Same (2005
[2006], Cryptogramophone).
Gauthier plays violin, often electric
with effects. Guitar (Nels Cline) and bass (Joel Hamilton) add to
the string resonances, while keyboards (David Witham) and drums
(Alex Cline) don't overwhelm them. The tempos tend to race, but
there's little density, and the violin never tightens up the way
someone like Billy Bang plays. So this doesn't sound like a lot
is happening, but it's appealing nonetheless.
B+(*)

Stan Getz: More Getz for Lovers (1952-91 [2006], Verve).
More like it as far as this series goes, but a semi-random
selection over four decades provides a style and group scattershot
that doesn't sustain a mood even if it keeps finding it again; the
two bossa nova cuts are the obvious culprits, but it's otherwise
hard to complain about "Desafinado."
B+(**)

Robert Glasper: Canvas (2005, Blue Note).
Young (27 years old) pianist on a major label -- the inference is that
he's the next Brad Mehldau, Bill Charlap, Jason Moran, someone like
that. Like those, he has a steady trio, with Vicente Archer on bass
and Damion Reid on drums. The trio holds its own on six of ten cuts
here, with Glasper playing sharp and fleet, and the drummer standing
out. Two more cuts feature Mark Turner's snaky tenor sax, making you
want to hear more. The other two cuts have Bilal scatting or
ululating, making you want to hear less. Don't have a strong feeling
one way or another.
B

Aaron Goldberg: Worlds (2003 [2006], Sunnyside).
Piano trio, plus guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel on one cut, vocalist
Luciana Souza on another. The latter I would find distracting even
if I didn't find it annoying. As for the rest, the world he seems
to like best is Brazil, and he makes us comfortable and more than
a little amused in that world.
B+(**)

Ned Goold Trio: The Flows (2004, Smalls).
Supposedly Goold has a system for building new compositions out of old
sets of chord changes. Don't know what that is, but he makes it look
easy, especially as he rarely cranks the speed up. Good tone, but not
a lot of depth, let alone vibrato; works in a bop framework that neither
sounds dated nor forced, that manages to stay interesting without
wandering far afield. Rhythm section is elementary, but does the job.
These cuts were selected from many hours of live tapes so there's
some variation in sound quality and interaction with the crowd. Next
to last cut has him introducing the band on a vamp out, adding "stay
tuned for the big show."
B+(*)

Mats Gustafsson & David Stackenås: Blues
(2003 [2005], Atavistic).
In his liner notes, Ken Vandermark argues that
the main difference between American and European jazz musicians is
that the former string time together whereas the latter deconstruct
it. What makes these blues unrecognizable as blues is that they have
no rhythm at all. That leaves us with sounds that erupt rather than
flow: electronics from Stackenås' guitar, faint approximations of
bass and drums from Gustafsson's bari sax. As an American I find
it all rather peculiar, but as a low-key, swingless noise album
it's not without interest.
B+(*)

Gutbucket: Sludge Test (2005 [2006], Cantaloupe).
I like the concept -- an electric guitar-bass-drums-sax quartet that's
racks up dense riffs and isn't afraid to get noisy -- but I wonder
whether they're too fancy, especially in the shifty time dynamics
that seem to be their main vector of idiosyncrasy. Reminds me of ye
olde prog rock when the least we can expect these days, especially
given the noise, is post-punk.
B

Barry Guy New Orchestra: Oort-Entropy (2004 [2005],
Intakt).
This is the slightly slimmed-down successor to Guy's London
Jazz Composers Orchestra -- a major arena for Europe's avant-garde
for nearly thirty years. The group here has the leader's bass, piano,
three reeds, three brass, and two percussionists. They can make a
good deal of noise, and frequently do, sometimes disconcertingly so.
I've never known what to make of such groups -- Schlippenbach and
Brötzmann, Vandermark and William Parker have led similar ones --
in that mode, nor have I ever figured out how composition and improv
interact in Guy's work: it's quite daunting on the one hand, and not
terribly rewarding on the other. What does impress me here are the
quieter moments where the dark matter of the cosmos appears more
intricately structured than expected.
B+(*)

Iro Haarla: Northbound (2004 [2006], ECM).
On paper
this looks like a piano-led bop quintet, and the line-up looks most
promising (Trygve Seim on sax, Mathias Eick on trumpet, Uffe Krokfors
on bass, Jon Christensen on drums) but in practice it is just a cut
or two above the usual arctic pastoralism: slow, methodical, nicely
ornamented, lovely without getting into lush. A giveaway, I suppose,
is that Haarla also plays harp here.
B+(*)

Jim Hall/Geoffrey Keezer: Free Association (2005,
ArtistShare).
Guitar-piano duets. A venerable item in Hall's catalog
is Undercurrent, his duo with Bill Evans. I've never warmed
much to that album, always suspecting that Hall is too subtle and
intricate to hold his own against a piano, even when manned by as
subtle and intricate as Evans. Keezer I don't know very well, but
try as he can he strikes me as a mismatch. So we get an understated
piano squeezing out an understated guitar. Doesn't leave much.
B

Slide Hampton Meets Two Tenor Case: Callitwhatchawana
(2002 [2005], Blue Jack Jazz).
The two tenor saxists are Sjoerd
Dukhuizen and Simon Rigter -- don't mean anything to me, nor have
I heard of the rest of the Dutch band. This is a set recorded live
at the Pannonica jazz club in the Hague. Hampton is best known for
his big band arrangements, but this is basic bebop, lingua franca
for jazz musicians everywhere. Fine stuff -- especially nice to
hear Hampton let it all hang out.
B+(**)

Herbie Hancock: The Essential Herbie Hancock (1962-98
[2006], Columbia/Legacy, 2CD).
Most of the cuts here are Columbias
but it's hard to argue that they're not representative given the
task of covering his full career. They're also the most useful --
if you don't know Hancock's legendary '60s work, the six cuts here
only shame you into seeking out more. The fusion-heavy Columbias,
on the other hand, need condensation, and this does a valiant and
useful job of sifting. Hancock's problem with fusion was that he
was always too urbane to rock -- only the machine-funk albums of
the '80s begin to bring the noise -- but he found new ways to play
jazz on electric keyboards.
B+(**)

Kevin Hays: Open Range (2004 [2006], ACT).
First new album in a while for a New York pianist
transplanted to New Mexico, taking the open spaces as a theme
for a solo album with some samples and singing of sorts. The
vocals at best add a homespun quaintness, but the slow-paced,
meditative piano is quite charming.
B+(*)

The Skip Heller Trio: Liberal Dose (2006, Skyeways).
Recorded live at the Flying Monkey, Huntsville, AL, but when? Don't
know. My copy is a black cardboard sleeve with a light blue label
wrapped around the spine. Reminds me of old Folkways LP covers, which
may be the point -- first song here is a tribute to Pete Seeger. Other
tributes include Dave Alvin, Emily Remler, and Johnny "Guitar" Watson.
Also a dedication to Tom DeLay -- Mahler's "Funeral March" played on
the morning DeLay got indicted. So I like the note sheet, but have
some trouble mapping it to the music. I suspect the Chris Spies' organ,
which neither leads nor follows nor gets out of the way. But when
Heller's guitar overpowers the organ on the Watson piece, I wonder
why he didn't do that sooner. Don't suppose I'll stick with this
long enough to figure that out.
B

Nachito Herrera: Bembé En Mi Casa (2005, FS Music).
All bembé, no siesta here -- this is Afro-Cuban jazz at its most
aggressive. The first piece in particular, called "Song in F" and
described as Latin jazz, goes way beyond my ability to parse or
track or make any sense of. It's built from multiple rhythm motifs,
overlayed in ways that make no sense to me. Other pieces are built
around traditional styles -- danzón, bolero, guaguanco, guaracha,
cha-cha -- making them simpler, easier to follow. Herrera plays
piano. The group is a sextet with electric bass, sax, trumpet,
and percussion -- congas, timbales, drums. A lot of action for a
relatively small group. Too much?
B+(**)

Andrew Hill: Time Lines (2005 [2006], Blue Note).
Francis Davis wrote about this record in the Voice recently, which
gives me an excuse for ducking it in JCG. I'm rather perplexed by
it, at least in the sense that while I admire it quite a bit, I'm
not all that happy with it. Hill cut his classic work for Blue
Note back in the '60s, then wandered for a couple decades with
scant output on small European labels, returned to Blue Note for
two albums, wandered some more, recorded a couple of albums for
Palmetto, and now is back home on Blue Note. As Davis notes, in
all this time there's been very little change in Hill's work --
I'd add that in many ways this new record is perfectly typical
of everything he's done over the last forty years. Like Monk, he
writes mostly for horns, slipping in things you don't expect, but
somehow they work anyway. Of course, he's subtler than Monk, but
more importantly, he juggles more elements. His quintet here rolls
along slightly out of whack yet remarkably together, and the feat
is plenty impressive. But it also feels like it was just cut to
order, and that's something I'm not so sure what to make of.
B+(***)

Reuben Hoch and Time: Of Recent Time (2006, Naim).
Recorded in a church in Florida by Ken Christianson, who seems to
have a reputation in audiophile circles. I know very little about
Hoch, the drummer and leader here, except that he has another group
called the Chassidic Jazz Project. This group is a piano trio with
Don Friedman and Ed Schuller. Hoch and Friedman wrote one tune each,
the others coming from post-'60s jazz stalwarts, on average a bit
left of center. Friedman has a strong reputation going back to the
early '60s when he was on Riverside's roster with Bill Evans. This
one sounds good, moves smartly.
B+(**)

John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble: A Blessing (2005,
Omnitone).
Hollenbeck's status as a jazz musician is somewhat suspect. His small
group, the Claudia Quintet, is rocksteady albeit in a microtonal mode;
his large ensemble is as post-classical as his small one is post-rock.
I rather dislike the vocal pieces with Theo Bleckmann, which feel more
like choral pieces than opera, although the opera of Ashley and Adams
isn't far off the horizon. The instrumental pieces etch complex patterns
from a plush repertoire of winds and brass, but Matt Moran's mallets
are perhaps most distinctive.
B+(**)

Sarah Hommel: A Sarah Hommel Drum All (2003 [2006],
Sahara Ford).
Six percussionists, counting Bill Ware's vibes, marimba
and xylophone, doing pieces written or arranged by Hommel. Like all
drum orgy records, this must have been more fun to perform than to
listen to. The live sound strikes me as a bit subdued, especially at
a couple of points when someone -- presumably Hommel -- sings along.
But the vocals give it a little lift at the end, justifying the
applause.
B+(*)

Monk Hughes & the Outer Realm: A Tribute to Brother
Weldon (2004, Stones Throw).
A tribute to jazz-funk keyboardist Weldon Irvine, although it doesn't
follow any of Irvine's music: these are new pieces in the "inspired by"
category, mostly written by bassist Hughes, keyboardist Joe McDuphrey,
and drummer Otis Jackson Jr. The group also includes a second keyboard
player, Morgan Adams III, mostly on organ. Madlib produced, aiming for
dense improv patterns whirling around synth-sounding instruments, the
reverse of the usual approach which moves to synths for more regularity.
The long closer moves further into free jazz territory, losing the beat,
then compensating with chaos. An interesting convolution.
B+(*)

Russ Johnson: Save Big (2004 [2005], Omnitone).
Pianoless quartet, with Russ Johnson's trumpet and John O'Gallagher's
alto sax up front. The framework is supposed to free up the leaders
to interact more spontaneously without the rhythmic constraints of
the piano, and that's pretty much what happens -- "Constantinople"
is an especially good example of this.
B+(**)

Jeannette Lambert: Sand Underfoot (2004 [2006],
Jazz From Rant).
Lambert describes herself as a "jazz vocalist/poet" --
I figure the poet came first, but she's worked hard on the jazz end,
and it pays off on one piece where she scats a bit. Her husband,
Michel Lambert, is a drummer, on the free end of the spectrum, and
consistently interesting here. Far better known are bassist Barre
Phillips and pianist Paul Bley, each doing characteristic -- which
of course means excellent -- work here. So there is much of interest
here, but it is partitioned out rather discretely: most cuts are
duos or trios -- only one cut features all four -- with the vocalist
herself appearing on only seven of thirteen pieces.
B+(**)

Nils Landgren & Joe Sample: Creole Love Call
(2005 [2006], ACT).
Landgren's a Swedish trombonist turned singer,
and this is his fun in New Orleans album -- sure, the title's an
Ellington song, and an instrumental to boot, but from Stockholm
the association is close enough, as is (evidently) "Dock of the
Bay," "Night Life," and "Love the One You're With." Sample, the
band, and guests who can outsing Landgren even wearing a sky mask
humor him. Hard not to.
B

Bernd Lhotzky: Piano Portrait (2005 [2006], Arbors).
Solo piano from a young guy who seems to be Germany's answer to Dick
Hyman. He plays stride and swing with some authority and a particular
fondness for Willie "The Lion" Smith. This is volume 15 in the Arbors
Piano Series. I haven't managed to come up with a complete list of
those volumes, but all appear to be solo piano, with John Bunch and
Johnny Varro launching the series. Not as adventurous as Concord's
Maybeck Hall series -- which started with Joanne Brackeen, but has
at least two intersections in Eddie Higgins and Dave McKenna -- but
it does serve to underscore that Arbors picked up the ball Concord's
VC's fumbled.
B+(*)

Rolf Lislevand: Nuove Musiche (2004 [2006], ECM).
Sounds old to me, but that's a risk one takes in ever labelling a
music New or Modern or Contemporary or whatever. The sources are
historical, dating from 1604-1650, early baroque. Lislevand plays
archlute, baroque guitar and theorboe, and others play comparable
antiques. They may or may not improvise on this. Not jazz in any
sense I recognize -- part of ECM's "New Series" -- but it works
nicely as instrumental music.
B+(*)

Joe Locke & Charles Rafalides: Van Gogh by Numbers
(2005 [2006], Wire Walker).
Seems like a very limited concept at first:
duets between vibes and marimba. But while the sonic palette is narrow,
especially with the marimba setting the pace, and this takes a while to
get in gera, it does develop into a pleasing complexity.
B+(*)

Carmen Lundy: Jazz and the New Songbook: Live at the Madrid
(2005, Afrasia Productions, 2CD).
Don't know her work, but she seems
like a strong, straight jazz interpreter in the Carmen McRae tradition.
The songs don't register all that strongly here, but the band and the
singer are impeccable.
B+(*)

The Chad Makela Quartet: Flicker (2004 [2005],
Cellar Live).
First thing that stood out here was trumpeter Brad Turner --
already noticed him as perhaps the strongest link in the Ugetsu group.
Makela plays baritone sax, a less flashy instrument, but even within
that context he isn't a particularly aggressive player -- not to say
he doesn't deliver in the end. The back end, bassist Paul Rushka and
drummer Jesse Cahill, also contribute, providing steady propulsion
that keeps the horns afloat.
B+(*)

Pete Malinverni: Theme & Variations (2005 [2006],
Reservoir).
He's a pianist I have a high regard for. This is a solo
album, which for me at least is always a problem. It's also a virtual
clinic in the art, and it never loses interest or the ability to
please.
B+(*)

Mat Maneri: Pentagon (2004 [2005], Thirsty Ear).
The avant violinist has a large and rather nasty sounding group
here, heavy on industrial grade keyboards with Ben Gerstein's
trombone the only horn. The latter is an interesting touch, and
worth focusing on. The thickly layered backdrop has some interest
as well.
B+(*)

Ray Marchica: In the Ring (2005, Sons of Sound).
No doubt but this is the drummer's record -- Marchica's two originals
don't amount to much, but his drums are the center everything else
is framed around. But the interesting thing is how Rodney Jones'
guitar and Teodross Avery's tenor sax exceed expectations -- both
are deployed modestly but tastefully, forming two vectors from the
drums into a fair range of repertoire. Bassist Lonnie Plaxico holds
his own, too.
B+(**)

Ellis Marsalis: Ruminations in New York (2003 [2004],
ESP-Disk).
The problem is that when the artist alone decides what goes
on the disc, you need artists with something to say. The first new
production of the famously ferocious '60s label -- home to Albert
Ayler and the Holy Modal Rounders -- is a relentlessly nice piece
of solo piano from the patriarch of the Marsalis mob. Nice. Awful
nice, in fact.
B

Billy Martin: Solo Live Tonic 2002 (2002 [2006], Amulet).
Solo drums, percussion, some whistles and birdcalls. The
drum pieces are tightly packed, and the range of percussion sounds
provides some variety -- the metallic ones are the most ear-catching.
A couple of spoken interludes are hard to hear: one about Black Elk,
another about Burundi, both intros.
B+(*)

Billy Martin and Socket: January 14 & 15, 2005
(2005, Amulet).
Recorded live at Tonic over two nights, the listing credits nine
musicians and vocalists, but the results are both more and less.
Five are credited with various manner of percussion, including
the leader, so this is definitely an album driven by the sound
of things banging. Three are credited with voice, of whom Shelley
Hirsch is first and no doubt foremost. Eyvind Kang plays the more
conventional instruments, although his first choice is violin.
Shahzad Ismaily helps out on bass, guitar and banjo when he's
not banging on things. This works best at extremes: in the
shallow water, a tiny beat with a little violin and hiccups of
trumpet; in the deep end, total cacophony.
B+(**)

Pat Martino: Remember: A Tribute to Wes Montgomery
(2005 [2006], Blue Note).
I go back and forth on Montgomery, without
caring much which way I lean at any given moment. Like Charlie Parker,
he was an innovator and an individualist who loomed so large over his
instrument that he became a standard for emulation -- so much so he
sometimes seems like a plague. If anything Montgomery is even more
ubiquitous today than Parker -- and while secondhand Parker amuses
me, secondhand Montgomery just seems like a shortage of ideas. This
one is especially devoid of ideas -- semi-famous veteran guitarist
plays a bunch of tunes associated with legendary dead guitarist and
if anyone wonders why it's just like the model, well, that's what a
tribute is, isn't it? This is hardly news, but the originals were
better. The saving grace here is that Dave Kikoski gets to pretend
he's Wynton Kelly. Kelly was better too, but Kikoski gets to enjoy
himself more.
B

Virginia Mayhew: Sandan Shuffle (2006, Renma).
The early going here, where the Latin-oriented rhythm section gets
its head, reminds me of those Latin-inflected hard bop records that
guys like Kenny Dorham cut in the '60s. Mayhew plays tenor sax with
that same sort of well squared off solidity. But then the album, as
these things so often do, wanders into other territory, including
a bouncy "In Walked Bud" and a slow, sly "I Get Along Without You
Very Well" with Mayhew switching to soprano. Kenny Wessel plays
soft-edged guitar. Nice middle-of-the-road album. Info on karate
in the liner notes.
B+(**)

Bill Mays Trio: Live at Jazz Standard (2004 [2005],
Palmetto).
Mays started out as an accompanist (Sarah Vaughan) and sideman,
started recording under his own name around 1982, has piled up a
respectable list of credits. He doesn't particularly sound like any
other pianist -- I'm tempted to group him with the likes of Walter
Norris because they don't sound like anyone else either. Standards
here that I know well don't seem so familiar in his hands, any more so
than the couple of originals he works in. All that adds up to is that
this isn't the sort of thing I feel like I can gauge -- no doubt it's
good, much doubt on how to explain it, not enough to inspire me to
try.
B+(**)

Carmen McRae: For Lovers (1955-59 [2006], Verve).
Standard songbook fare, done with her usual reverent precision, half
with soft-stringed orchestras and half with piano trios, neither in
any way distinctive even when Ray Bryant tinkles the ivories. Her
finest readings -- e.g., the bookends "When I Fall in Love" and
"Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" -- are authoritative, and this isn't
a bad way to approach her Decca period if you're inclined towards
straight-up divas. After all, no one stood straighter.
B

Mike Melvoin Presents Dan Jaffe: Playing the Word
(2005 [2006], City Light).
Jaffe reads poems from his book of the
same name, subtitled "Jazz Poems," while Melvoin plays piano. The
latter includes originals as well as pieces by Ellington, Parker,
and a Frank Smith I can't identify for sure. The poems focus on
Kansas City, where this was recorded, with a bit of Basie and a
whole mess of Parker -- by far the longest piece is the 12:24 of
"Bird Talk." The music is background, but the words have some bite.
B+(*)

Red Mitchell/George Cables: Live at Port Townsend
(1992 [2005], Challenge).
Seems like an odd little piece to dig up
these days, but bassist Mitchell and pianist Cables make a fine pair.
But perhaps it's meant as a memorial -- Mitchell died shortly after,
so it may be his last recording. Mitchell's vocal is a throwaway,
and that's its charm.
B+(**)

Modern Traditions Ensemble: New Old Music (2003 [2005],
Adventure Music).
New versions of Brazilian choro classics, done by a
five piece group led by pianist Benjamin Taubkin, with guitar, mandolin,
soprano sax/clarinet, and percussion. Nice.
B+(**)

Paul Motian Band: Garden of Eden (2004 [2006], ECM).
The further evolution of the Electric Bebop Band, but still anchored
with covers of Mingus and Parker. Still, this is mostly texture, with
saxophonists Chris Cheek and Tony Malaby reined in, and Motian as
slippery as ever.
B+(**)

Jovino Santos Neto: Roda Carioca (Rio Circle)
(2005 [2006], Adventure Music).
Perhaps it's the northeast roots or the 12
years he's lived in Seattle, but this is one Brazilian record that
doesn't pull its punches. Neto plays piano, melodica, flutes, and
accordion -- the latter on the exuberantly Tango-ish "Coco Na Roda"
is what kicks the album into overdrive.
B+(***)

Arturo O'Farrill: Live in Brooklyn (2005, Zoho).
With Andy Gonzalez and Dafnis Prieto, this should be a solid, heavily
latin-tinged piano trio outing, but only the closing Monk piece gets
my attention.
B

Next Order: Live-Powered Nexus (2005, Lolo).
This is
a Japanese group with a rock lineup: two electric guitars (Yuji Moto
and Takumi Seino), electric bass (Atsutomo Ishigaki) and drums (Hiroshi
"Gori" Matsuda). Any temptation to classify this as instrumental rock
or fusion even is belied by the structure of the pieces and their
improvisational content. As jazz goes, this still has a hard surface,
and the drumming is less flexible than the guitars, but it moves with
admirable economy.
B+(*)

Keith Oxman: Dues in Progress (2005 [2006], Capri).
Another solid mainstream album. Oxman plays tenor sax. In the past --
this is his sixth album on Colorado-based Capri -- he's played in a
quartet that is the core here, but this time he has extra brass,
including featured name trombonist Curtis Fuller, and at least one
cut has a stray oboe. Pianist Chip Stephens also gets his name in
larger type on the front cover, recognition of his steady hand.
Bassist Ken Walker is another strong contributor. Everything here
strikes me as well done, but no more -- e.g., a Joe Henderson song
sounds a lot like Joe Henderson, even though Oxman otherwise doesn't
particularly recall Henderson.
B+(*)

Francisco Pais: Not Afraid of Color (2004 [2006],
Fresh Sound New Talent).
It took a while to get the feel
of this complex postmodern cool or whatever. Pais plays guitar,
layered intricately with Leo Genovese's keyboards and Chris Cheek's
reeds. One cut I noticed each time through was "Transfiguration,"
partly because the pace picks up a bit, but mostly due to Ferenc
Nemeth's drums.
B+(*)

Jaco Pastorius Big Band: The Word Is Out (2006, Heads Up).
I'm way behind the learning curve here -- haven't heard the first
JP Big Band record, don't even have a fix on JP himself: two records
in the database (one B+, one B), don't know his stuff with Pat Metheny,
don't recall him with Weather Report (never was a fan of them; three
B, one B+ records in the database), haven't heard his Rhino comp. So
the first thing I don't get here is the point. What I do hear are
splashy big band arrangements, mostly of Pastorius originals, with
one Metheny, one Joe Zawinul, one Herbie Hancock, and a "Blackbird"
that especially sticks in my craw. As big band bombast, this ain't
half bad; as fusion, it just ain't; as Pastorius, beats me. Still,
I figure it's time to cut my losses.
B

Houston Person: All Soul (2005, High Note).
First time through this felt like he was phoning it in, but near the
end "Please Send Me Someone to Love" turned magesterial, and the
upbeat closer "Put It Right There" finally provided some payoff from
the band. So I spun it again and noticed a slow but gorgeous "Let It
Be Me" -- but the rest of the album, overpopulated by a sextet, only
improved marginally.
B+(**)

Kerry Politzer Quartet: Labyrinth (2004 [2005],
Polisonic).
Young pianist, on her third album. Straightforward
postbop, makes a strong impression, especially on the opener,
"Rhodes Rage," with its percussive block chords. Fourth member
is saxophonist Andrew Rathbun, whose leads free Politzer to
work out the rhythmic angles. Rathbun plays tenor and soprano --
no surprise that I prefer the tenor. Best known musician in the
group is George Colligan, playing drums rather inconspicuously
instead of his usual piano. Politzer wrote all the pieces.
B+(**)

Odean Pope Saxophone Choir: Locked & Loaded: Live at
the Blue Note (2004 [2006], Half Note).
Pope's choir is
more like a big band with nine saxes and no brass -- the key being
that the group is anchored by a piano-bass-drums rhythm section.
The saxes do their best to harmonize, but for this gig they get
outgunned by the guests: Michael Brecker on two cuts, Joe Lovano
on two, and James Carter on the finale. Brecker stands out as the
soloist on a hot night, but Carter works the group harder, making
"Mantu Chant" the choice cut.
B+(**)

Chris Potter: Underground (2005 [2006], Sunnyside).
Title piece isn't all that deep underground, but it's a good example
of how powerfully he can blow, and it gives guitarist Wayne Krantz
some space to boot. Then the record closes with "Yesterday" -- slow
almost to the point of unrecognizability, but it marks the return
of that thin pot-metal tone I've never cared for. The earlier tracks
are similarly mixed.
B+(**)

Shaynee Rainbolt: At Home (2006, 33 Jazz).
Standards singer. Don't know much about her, other than that this
is her second album. Lee Musiker, who works with Tony Bennett, plays
piano and arranged the torchier pieces, so that may provide a hint
as to orientation and ambition. I was much more struck by the more
uptempo items, including some delectable guitar -- Gene Bertoncini,
of course.
B+(*)

Enrico Rava: Tati (2004 [2005], ECM).
Ranks about
midway in a longish list of the trumpeter's albums over the last
two years, all of which are various shades of B+ albums. Tops is
Full of Life (CAM Jazz), then La Dolce Vita (with
Giovanni Tommaso, also CAM Jazz), Easy Living (ECM), this
one, Salvatore Bonafede's Journey to Donnafugata (CAM Jazz).
This is the most inauspicious, with pianist Stefano Bollani taking
more of a lead role, and Paul Motian dithering what passes for
rhythm. Lovely, but very understated.
B+(**)

Herb Robertson NY Downtown Allstars: Elaboration
(2004 [2005], Clean Feed).
Since they're "allstars" we might as well start by listing them:
Robertson (trumpet, cornet), Tim Berne (alto sax), Sylvie Courvoisier
(piano), Mark Dresser (bass), Tom Rainey (drums). Courvoisier is a new
one to me, but a quick check reveals my bad. AMG lists six albums plus
ten more credits, and she's mostly worked with people I do
recognize. Album contains one 48:28 piece. Starts slow, builds to
something quite impressive, fades out, just like it should. I'm duly
impressed, but I doubt that this would make much sense to a
neophyte. Will make a note to pay more attention for Courvoisier.
B+(**)

Duke Robillard: Guitar Groove-A-Rama (2006,
Stony Plain).
For some reason jazz magazines from Downbeat
to Cadence have a side-interest in blues, establishing an
affinity that hasn't really existed over the last 30-40 years --
not since blues shouters like Big Joe Turner, Jimmy Witherspoon
and Jimmy Rushing fronted jazz bands. Since then the blues genre
has narrowed down into a main stream of guitar slingers who make
up a narrow, conservative genre under rock, plus a couple of creeks
off to the side for folkie-musicologists like Taj Mahal and soul
holdovers like Etta James and Solomon Burke. I've wondered whether
about slipping a straight blues record into my jazz guide, and
actually did once, with Billy Jenkins' When the Crowds Have
Gone. But that was pretty far out in left field. James Blood
Ulmer's Birthright tempted me -- like Jenkins, Ulmer's
catalog is for the most part solidly positioned as jazz. I don't
get much blues, but I figure when I do get something there's no
harm in at least prospecting it, even if it's unlikely it will
qualify for the jazz guide. Robillard is a comfortable mainstream
guitar slinger. He paid his dues with the Fabulous Thunderbirds
and Roomful of Blues before going solo. He's got nothing much to
say, but he's happy to be here, happy to be the end of the title
cut's jukebox history of the blues, which started with his best
Muddy Waters impersonation and worked its way down the ages.
B+(*)

Carol Robbins: Jazz Play (2005, Jazzcats).
Robbins plays harp. She came up through the usual classical steps,
but studied under Dorothy Ashby, who until recently was pretty much
the beginning and end of the list of jazz harpists. Harp isn't a
very imposing instrument. Here she mostly fills up the spaces at
the end of lines, adding a shimmering texture to the other five
musicians, who carry most of the music. Guitarist Larry Koonse
and bassist Darek Oles provide the strings that complement the
harp's sound. Bob Sheppard plays tenor and soprano sax, matched
with Steve Huffstetet on trumpet or flugelhorn. Perhaps to keep
from blowing the leader away, they all play what we might call
neo-cool: light, measured, rather delicate post-bop. It makes
for an intriguing little album.
B+(*)

Wallace Roney: Prototype (2004, HighNote).
The extended family is dependable, and I've rarely heard Antoine
sounding so robust -- his saxophone threatens to run away with
the show. The DJ Logic electronics experiment is OK too, but limited
to three tracks, where it mostly provides a funky backdrop rather
than trying to set the pace. But it's hardly a tour de force for
the trumpeter, just a series of sketches that start out promising
and wind up a bit unfulfilled.
B+(**)

Wallace Roney: Mystikal (2005, HighNote).
The previous one, with the same general concept of family postbop plus
turntables, was called Prototype. Perhaps the new title
signifies that the development process has gotten sidetracked.
(Certainly can't be a nod to the rapper.) At least, the project
hasn't jelled yet: the electronics and acoustics separate out
pretty cleanly. I like Val Jeanty's turntable work here -- both
the scratches and the samples -- but they're still scarce enough
that they're background rather than base. The Roney brothers do
a fine job of splitting the difference between solid and slick --
Antoine, in particular, is gaining ground, but the best musician
in the house remains Geri Allen, so doesn't steal the album so
much as keep it propped up. But we're still waiting to see what
comes of these parts.
B+(**)

Mick Rossi: One Block From Planet Earth (2004 [2005],
Omnitone).
A small group with a lot of options, centered on Rossi's piano but with
two horns, drums, and a virtuosic performance by Mark Dresser on bass.
The horns are Andy Laster (reeds) and Russ Johnson (trumpet). This runs
toward the abstract side, deliberately paced, with odd spurts from all
sides. I like it fine, but don't feel it sweeping me away or dazzling
like it should to move up a level.
B+(*)

Harvie S: Funky Cha (2005 [2006], Zoho).
The name
change of the bassist formerly known as Harvie Swartz -- I recall
him best from his duets with Sheila Jordan -- seems to have followed
a quasi-religious conversion to latin music. Not sure just how this
unfolded -- he played with Paquito D'Rivera in 1991, but a trip to
Cuba in 1996 appears to have been pivotal, with the name change
appearing on a 2001 record called New Beginning. This one
strikes me as well studied and evenly balanced, with Daniel Kelly's
piano and Jay Collins' reeds carrying the vibe, and the percussion
up to snuff.
B+(**)

Pharoah Sanders Quintet: Pharoah's First (1964 [2005],
ESP Disk).
Two long pieces, the first a bit rougher, both close in tone and
dynamics to Coltrane and very much up to the moment. The quintet
isn't especially distinguished, although Jane "no relation" Getz holds
her own on piano.
B+(***)

Christian Scott: Rewind That (2005 [2006], Concord).
An auspicious debut for a young New Orleans trumpeter, nephew of guest
alto saxist Donald Harrison. This compares to '60s hard bop much like
'90s r&b compared to Stax soul -- softer, creamier, more texture
and less emotion. It's almost like we're witnessing the reinvention
of cool.
B+(*)

Aram Shelton: Arrive (2001 [2005], 482 Music).
Shelton plays alto sax. Based in Chicago, he fits roughly into the
Vandermark orbit, an association underscored by Jason Roebke and
Tim Daisy here. This would be a typical avant-sax trio, but it's
not: it has a fourth wheel, vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, which
adds a distinctive twist. Most vibes players, going back to when
Lionel Hampton traded his sticks in for mallets, are primarily
into rhythm, but one thing Adasiewicz does here is to exploit the
instrument's tone to add a harmonic dimension to the trio.
B+(**)

John Sheridan's Dream Band: Easy as It Gets (2005, Arbors).
Sheridan is a fine stride pianist, rooted in the old swing
styles he encountered as a child on Benny Goodman records. He calls
his band "the dream band" -- you would too if you stepped into his
shoes. The seven instrumental cuts swing lightly but definitively,
with the title piece the choicest of cuts. Ron Hockett's clarinet
stands out, but everyone contributes, and the band hangs together
to properly sum up its parts. The other eight cuts feature singer
Rebecca Kilgore, who fits nicely into the swing, but is almost a
distraction in this company. But she does ace the closer, "I'm
Sitting on Top of the World."
B+(***)

Janis Siegel: A Thousand Beautiful Things (2006, Telarc).
The band is solidly Latin -- Edsel Gomez (piano), John
Benitez (bass), Steve Hass (drums), Lusito Quintero (percussion),
with Colombian Edmar Castañeda playing "Columbian harp" and Brian
Lynch's brass on two cuts. The songs with one or two exceptions
start elsewhere -- Björk, Stevie Wonder, Anne Lennox, Raul Midón,
Suzanne Vega, Paul Simon -- so the gimmick is to Latinize them,
although you can only be sure when Quintero is on the case, at
which point it becomes obvious. The harp is interesting. The
singer is proficient, but the songs don't amount to much.
B

Nine Simone: The Soul of Nina Simone (1963-87
[2005], RCA/Legacy).
Aside from one much later Verve track thrown
in for no obvious reason, this is a rather arbitrary selection of
her '60s tracks, with no discernible theme except that life is
hard but she's hard too; half of the tracks are remarkable, and
not even the "Porgy and Bess Medley" sucks, so figure this to be
one of her more consistent comps.
B+(*)

Nina Simone: Sings the Blues (1966-69 [2006], RCA/Legacy).
She has the pipes to be a great blues singer, and she
can play a little blues piano, but rather than submit to the program,
she fusses around to mixed effect; "Backlash Blues" belongs on her
message tape, "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl" on her hits, "Since
I Fell for You" is a good cover with a little harmonica.
B

Nina Simone: Silk & Soul (1967-69 [2006],
RCA/Legacy):
It's hard to convey just how awful her "Cherish" is,
but how much can you penalize an album for one song? Depends on
whether there's anything else on it you'd ever want to hear again.
Most of this is in her average range, which means that most of it
is listenable but not quite as good as you'd wish for.
C

Nina Simone: Forever Young, Gifted and Black: Songs of
Freedom and Spirit (1967-69 [2006], RCA/Legacy):
She was
meant to sing her secular civil rights hymns, but "Backlash Blues"
and "Mississippi Goddam" slip a bit in live versions, so the only
song here that delivers all she can do is "I Wish I Knew How It
Would Feel to Be Free"; filler from Dylan, the Byrds, and Hair
don't cut it, and two takes of the title song have been permanently
scorched by Bob & Marcia's ska version.
B

The Essential Frank Sinatra With the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra
(1940-42 [2005], RCA/Legacy, 2CD).
After breaking in with Harry James'
band this is the first significant piece in Sinatra's discography. He
was already a remarkably smooth, confident singer, although he would
develop himself much further later on. He does, however, bring out the
absolute worst in Dorsey, especially on the second disc, where the
strings swamp the band. This material has been rehashed ad nauseum:
everything from a 5-CD box to the three volumes of The Popular Frank
Sinatra to various single discs to this double. The only one that
much impressed me is The Popular Frank Sinatra, Vol. 1. This
is de trop.
B

Daniel Smith: Bebop Bassoon (2004 [2006], Zah Zah).
As advertised, no more, no less. Smith is well known in the classical
catalogue, but this is his first attempt to tackle a jazz program.
Starts with the jaunty "Killer Joe," then gets a bit tricker with
"Anthropology" and "Blue Monk." All ten songs are well known. The
bassoon gives them an odd sound, split by the double reeds. Seems
like a chore just to play, much less improvise in.
B

Bob Sneider & Paul Hofmann: Escapade (2004 [2006],
Sons of Sound).
It's not much clearer what's going on in this duo, but
my working theory is not a whole lot. Pianist Hofmann has the upper
hand in everything but billing order. More listening might help to
sort out Sneider's guitar, but I doubt that it will make much of a
difference.
B

Loren Stillman: It Could Be Anything (2005,
Fresh Sound New Talent).
Young alto saxist, started mainstream, but he's
quickly developing into a distinctive, inventive stylist, and this
piano-bass-drums quartet has some zip to it. Not inconceivable that
he could develop into a major player, and if he does this one will
be viewed as a stepping stone. But for now he's skilled, sure footed,
and working in a niche overloaded with competitive talent.
B+(**)

Sun Ra: Heliocentric Worlds: Volumes 1 and 2 (1965 [2005],
ESP-Disk).
Two LPs recorded seven months apart, still they fit together. Both are
large groups working complex sonic terrain -- the first bursting with
tympani, both awash in percussion and an exotic range of instruments
including celeste, marimba, tuned bongos, piccolo, flute, and quite a
bit of bass clarinet. Still, this doesn't show much swing, or momentum
even.
B+(***)

Sun Ra: Heliocentric Worlds Vol. 3: The Lost Tapes
(1965 [2005], ESP-Disk).
An extra, previously unreleased 35:47 from the Nov. 16 session that
produced Vol. 2. While the pieces are new, not much else is:
they start with horn a blaring, and everyone doubles on percussion,
but there is some redeeming piano for hard core devotees.
B

Sun Ra: Nothing Is . . . (1966 [2005], ESP-Disk).
More space schtick, including some chant-like vocals that are neither
here nor there. One piece that stands out is "Exotic Forest," with
a lot of percussion in the bush and high-pitched horns popping out
of the canopy. The bonus cuts include one that swings, and another
that travels the spaceways.
B+(**)

Tamura + Sharp + Kato + Fujii: In the Tank (2005, Libra).
Free improv conjures up a dark, smoky aura of ominous sounds, with Natsuki
Tamura's trumpet prominent early on and Satoko Fujii's piano definitive
in the end, Takayuki Kato's guitar filling up much of the middle. Elliott
Sharp is less conclusively present, perhaps because I'm not distinguishing
his guitar, or maybe even his soprano sax.
B+(**)

Tommaso-Rava Quartet: La Dolce Vita (1999 [2005],
CAM Jazz).
CAM Jazz's main business is in soundtracks, which has led to an unusual
concentration of movie-themed jazz albums. This isn't a soundtrack for
the Fellini movie. It pulls pieces from a wide range of Italian movies,
with the Nino Rota-pened "La Dolce Vita" floating to the top over "Il
Postino" and "L'Avventura" and the rest. The quartet rounds out with
pianist Stefano Bollani and drummer Roberto Gatto, veterans at least
as well established as bassist Giovanni Tommaso, if not necessarily
as internationally known as Enrico Rava. Lovely work by all.
B+(***)

Ralph Towner: Time Line (2005 [2006], ECM).
Yet another solo guitar album. That makes five going back to 1973's
Diary, or more going back to 1972's Trios/Solos. On
first approximation, sounds much like all the rest. He does, after
all, do this for a reason.
B+(*)

The Derek Trucks Band: Songlines (2006, Columbia).
Enough interesting idea here to make me think an interesting album
is possible, even if not necessarily in the works. Pieces by Roland
Kirk, Toots Hibbert, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, as well as some trad
blues. The vocals wander some -- the leader doesn't sing, but several
band members do, making for a curious eclecticism.
B+(***)

Assif Tsahar: Solitude (2005, Hopscotch).
Something new in terms of sax with strings -- largely because this
stark, abrasive string quartet does most of the work, setting the
tone and the sandpaper texture. Tsahar's reeds and Tatsuya Nakatani's
percussion play free patterns counter to the strings. Or sometimes
the strings go pizzicato and join in. Difficult music.
B+(*)

Ugetsu: Live at the Cellar (2005 [2006], Cellar Live).
The Cellar is a jazz club in Vancouver -- as they put it, "often compared
to the Village Vanguard for its ambience and acoustics." The group name
appears to derive from a 1963 Art Blakey album title, although a famous
1953 Japanese movie lurks somewhere in the background. This particular
group is led by drummer Bernie Arai and alto saxist Jon Bentley and is
part of a strong Vancouver jazz scene. But it is completely distinct
from another Blakey-inspired Ugetsu, based in Europe and led by bassist
Martin Zenker and trumpeter Valery Ponomarev. The latter group has four
albums, including globetrotting stops in Shanghai and Cape Town, so the
potential for confusion is manifest. Group is a sextet, with trumpet,
trombone, piano and bass joining the leaders. It's a nice group, making
pleasant, enjoyable MOR jazz.
B

Upper Left Trio: Sell Your Soul Side (2005 [2006], Origin).
Piano trio, probably from Seattle, with Clay Giberson in
the hot seat, Jeff Leonard on bass and Charlie Doggett on drums.
Don't know any of them, but the album is sharply reasoned and
deftly executed. Picture on the back cover reminds me of E.S.T. --
young white guys against a bleak background. Music is similar too,
but no electronics.
B+(**)

Roseanna Vitro: Live at the Kennedy Center (2005 [2006],
Challenge).
I like her Ray Charles record quite a bit,
but this one doesn't make something out of a well worn chestnut
until "Black Coffee" comes around, and then it's over. Playing
at the Kennedy Center must have brought out her good intentions --
the main song sequences includes things like "Please Do Something,"
"Commitment," "Tryin' Times."
B

Chris Walden Big Band: Winter Games (2006, Origin, EP).
Actually just a 3:52 single ("full version"), followed by a 3:10
"radio edit." The theme is attractive enough, but the orchestration
is neither as clean nor as dirty as I'd like, and it's all section
work -- no individual development. If I had to deal with a full album
like this I'd probably bury it with a middling grade -- unless it got
to be really annoying. But given my system singles are annoying by
definition.
C

Myron Walden: This Way (2005, Fresh Sount New Talent).
Walden won a Charlie Parker competition in 1993, and he's developed
from there. Jimmy Greene's tenor adds to the saxiness.
B+(**)

Cedar Walton: Underground Memoirs (2005, High Note).
Solo piano, one original, the rest standard jazz pieces from the
generation Walton grew up to. I'm duly impressed, but it's hard
for me to get much excited by solo piano. I suspect I'm selling
him short, but this has plateaued for me.
B+(**)

Patty Waters: The Complete ESP-Disk' Recordings
(1965-66 [2005], ESP-Disk).
Two albums, Sings and College
Tour, squeezed onto one disc. I just have a CDR with no extra
info, so can't comment on packaging, documentation, etc. First
album has one side of minimal piano with voice and a 13:56 rant
of "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair" on the other side.
The live second splits the difference. She takes chances pushing
her vocals to the outer limits of emotion, but I don't hear much
more than effect -- a cult item with hints of interest.
B

Dave Weckl Band: Multiplicity (2005, Stretch).
Mostly a fusion band in ye olde Weather Report mode, which means the
bass groove (Tom Kennedy), keybs (Steve Weingart) and sax (Gary Meek,
balancing soprano and tenor, plus alto flute and bass clarinet) are
layered on thick. The difference is drummer Weckl, who as leader gets
to show off. The only time this record distinguishes itself is when
he does -- although the groove is pleasant enough.
B

The Mary Lou Williams Collective: Zodiac Suite: Revisited
(2000-03 [2006], Mary).
Williams bridges the swing and post-bop eras,
not conceptually but as someone who's been there, done that. The
Zodiac Suite itself dates from 1945, and was part of a movement
from danceband jazz toward "America's classical music," very much in
parallel with Ellington's initial interest in suites. Arranged for
piano trio, this suite makes for engaging chamber music -- people
like Fred Hersch do this sort of thing nowadays, but Williams was
decades ahead of anyone else. Without recourse to the original, I'd
guess that the main thing Geri Allen and Buster Williams add here
is state of the art sonic presence. The whole project is too humble
to expect much more.
B+(*)

Gerald Wilson Orchestra: In My Time (2005, Mack Avenue).
Big band music, where the sections snap, crackle and pop,
and every soloist sounds like a star -- and not just because most
are. Wilson has been doing this sort of thing for a long time --
he was 86 when this was recorded, old enough to be famous for how
old he is, which puts him into the living legend camp. Big bands
since he came into his own in the early '60s have been basket
cases: with no economic rationale or prospects, they depend on
the generosity of grants and the musicians -- in both cases it
no doubt helps to be a living legend. And here it pays off.
A-

Anthony Wonsey: The Thang (2005, Sharp Nine).
He's a sharp mainstream pianist, but the album is neither fish nor fowl.
On four cuts tenor saxist Eric Alexander sits in and takes over, making
a big impression while Wonsey fades into the background. The other four
cuts are piano trio. Either way could be worth pursuing, but split like
this limits the spoils.
B+(**)

World Drummers Ensemble: A Coat of Many Colors
(1996-2005 [2006], Summerfold).
Four drummers -- Bill Bruford and
Chad Wackerman from the rock-jazz fusion world, Doudou N'Diaye Rose
from Senegal, Luis Conte from Cuba -- make a small subset of the
world, and one rather biased towards the north at that. Nonetheless,
N'Diaye seems to have the edge here, although Conte also contributes
to the hand drums. The trap drummers, on the other hand, start out
with a few ideas but eventually devolve into martial beats.
B

Music: Current count 11972 [11950] rated (+22), 891 [871] unrated (+20).
Mostly jazz prospecting this week, but it seems like I haven't made much
of a dent in the backlog. For one thing, got a scary amount of new stuff
in the mail. For a while I thought I was going to get the urnated count
down under 800, but now over 900 looks more likely.

Kasey Chambers: Wayward Angel (2004, Warner Bros.):
Still a formidable voice. A few more good songs. Could use a few more
still. B+(**)

Jackie-O Motherfucker: Flags of the Sacred Harp
(2005, ATP): Sonically they sound like the Cowboy Junkies should
have sounded had they not been so smacked out or untalented or
whatever their problem was. Alternatively, they sound like Sonic
Youth grown old and sedentary, sitting on the porch as dragonflies
visit from the marsh. Doesn't seem like so much, but I've played
this a dozen times or more, and it's come to feel like an old
friend. A couple of tracks are basically instrumental. Hidden
bit at the end has them playing "Limbo Rock" for about a minute,
loose and scattered, very playful. A-

John Mayer Trio: Try! (2005, Aware/Columbia):
Drummer Steve Jordan and bassist Pino Palladino get cover credit
in what looks format-wise like it might be a jazz group. Mayer
is a singer-songwriter with some blues licks and a crimped Van
Morrison imitation. Live keeps it loose. Extra fun: "I Got a
Woman," where Mayer aims for Jamie Foxx territory and, as my
dad used to like to say, comes close enough for government work.
B+(**)

Van Morrison: Pay the Devil (2006, Lost Highway):
One of the world's all-time great singers. A batch of certifiably
classic country songs (plus one ringer). What can go wrong? Well,
the usual Nashville production, for one thing -- an inchoate mix
of steel guitar and violins. Van's own song isn't a letdown here:
it swings easy, fits his phrasing, exudes Celtic soul. He could
still write his own album. Some of the country songs are pretty
great, too. B+(***)

Jazz Prospecting (CG #10, Part 6)

Another week, another week of jazz prospecting. Despite all the
work below, in the Sisyphean nature of this job the new record
backlog actually grew last week. Still not clear how or when this
is going to shape up. Most of the real prospects are still on the
replay shelf, but I have at least another week of unplayed to
check out, and there will probably be more still at the end of
the week. Meanwhile, I've decided that the surplus cull from the
last round is done. The notes were posted in the previous blog
entry. More needs to be done there: the done list is currently
at 95, about three JCGs worth, while the unrated list is at 131,
four more. Finally, the prospecting notes on the surplus records
have been moved to the notebook -- all 151.

Louie Bellson: The Sacred Music of Louie Bellson and the
Jazz Ballet (2000 [2005], Percussion Power): So the former
Ellington drummer follows in his master's footsteps in making an
earnest offering before meeting his maker. I don't recall Bellson
ever writing lyrics before, but it's a good thing he didn't try
to make a career out of it. Having studiously avoided CCM, I can't
say whether his words here achieve an unprecedented level in the
dumbing down of Christianity or whether they're just par for the
times -- the latter, I suspect. For example: "Throw the blues
away/come and live God's way/you will then rejoice/'cause you
made the choice/He is the one and only one/He's the Lord." USC's
student choir are overkill here -- the effect could be camp, but
I doubt it. USC's string orchestra are no better, but Bellson
brought in a couple of ringers to beef up the Jazz Orchestra,
with Bobby Shew and/or John Thomas cranking the trumpet up to,
well, Bellsonian levels. In such moments, you can remember why
Bellson could title albums Hot and Inferno and
get credit for understatement.
C+

Pete Zimmer Quintet: Burnin' Live at the Jazz Standard
(2006, Tippin'): This is almost exactly what most people think of as
jazz these days: standard forms -- a blues, a waltz, some pop themes,
but all originals -- stretched out over 7-13 minutes with solos rotated
between trumpet/flugelhorn, tenor sax, piano, bass and drums, all of
which are articulate and swing hard. The live setting is appropriate --
we all know that the essence of jazz is its continuous invention, on
stage, before an audience. Zimmer is a young drummer, well schooled,
hard working, and he's got a perfectly solid group here -- Joel Frahm
is the biggest name and probably the senior citizen, but everyone does
their job. Only problem is that when it comes to recorded jazz,
this level of professionalism is the norm and therefore not all that
noteworthy.
B+(*)

Ray Mantilla: Good Vibrations (2006, Savant): A while
back I made a survey through my database trying to figure out who the
most legendary jazz musician was who I still didn't have any records
by. As I recall, the answer I came up with was Cal Tjader, a vibes
player who recorded dozens of Latin-tinged albums from 1951 up to
his death in 1982. I suppose one thing this illustrates is that I've
never held out much hope for Latino vibes powerhouses, and I mention
it now because I never imagined them bowling me over like the first
two cuts here -- Lionel Hampton's two most famous showstoppers, with
Mike Freeman on vibes and percussion all around coming from Mantilla,
Bill Elder and Steve Berrios. The record softens out after that, as
Hampton is displaced by polite boleros and Enrique Fernández joins
in on flute. But the closer bounces back, not least because Fernández
goes heavy on baritone sax. Think I'll give it another shot.
[B+(**)]

Melvin Sparks: Groove On Up (2005 [2006], Savant):
This comes out of the gate like gangbusters -- organ and flashpick
guitar, the cut is "MyKia's Dance" -- but this cools off quickly,
and not just because such a narrow concept of groove needs a change
of pace. That's what the two guest vocals are for.
B-

Jerry Bergonzi: Tenor of the Times (2006, Savant):
He has a couple of albums with his name shortened to Gonz in the title.
It fits: he has a huge tenor sound and plays with a lot of muscular
action -- even the ballad-tempo piece feels thick, dense, rock solid.
He's backed by piano-bass-drums, but rarely out of the spotlight: an
old fashioned saxophone colossus. Sure, it's been done, and better,
but not all that often.
B+(**)

Jason Kao Hwang: Edge (2005 [2006], Asian Improv):
I've played this several times, going up and down on it, which makes
me think it's a record that rewards careful listening but doesn't
emerge clearly from the background. The lead instruments are the
leader's violin and Taylor Ho Bynum's cornet, a nice combination.
The quartet is filled out by Andrew Drury and Ken Filiano. Still
working on it.
[B+(**)]

Pete McCann: Most Folks (2005 [2006], Omnitone):
Guitarist, with two previous albums on Palmetto and sideman credits
going back to 1990 -- the booklet claims fifty albums, but AMG only
lists about half that. I didn't recognize the name, but I've heard
two of his credits, both A- albums: Tom Varner's The Window Up
Above and Matt Wilson's Going Once, Going Twice. His
website plays up his flexibility: "Pete's playing encompasses a wide
variety of musical styles and genres -- Straight-ahead, Post-Bop,
Avant-Garde, Latin, Jazz-Rock Fusion." The booklet puts it this way:
"From gentle nylon acoustic guitar sounds to sinewy and intricate
jazz guitar runs to roots-of-grunge Jimi Hendrix inspired hooting."
I'll have to listen further to see if I can sort out this variety,
but this strikes me as tight and focused -- whatever the opposite
of eclectic is. The most immediate appeal is John O'Gallagher, whose
alto sax is always on edge. But McCann plays distinctively around
the sax, and holds the focus on his own, even when the going gets
quiet. Also on board are bass-drums I trust -- John Hebert, Mark
Ferber -- and pianist Mike Holober, who I only know from one of the
better big band records I've heard in the last few years.
[A-]

Kidd Jordan/Hamid Drake/William Parker: Palm of Soul
(2005 [2006], AUM Fidelity): The lonesome legend of the New Orleans
underground finally gets a fair hearing. I've heard Jordan a couple
of times before without ever managing to get past the caterwaul, but
he seems calm and thoughtful here. Drake and Parker indulge in their
usual bag of tricks -- guimbri and gongs, tablas and frame drum,
Hamid chants along with one -- as well as their usual genius.
[B+(**)]

Charles Gayle Trio: Live at Glenn Miller Café
(2006, Ayler): After all his attempts at diversification -- piano,
violin, solo piano album, can Gayle with strings be far behind? --
it's a pleasure just to hear him blow and his trio-mates, Gerald
Benson and Michael Wimberly, bang. Doesn't hurt that he sticks
with his more moderate alto instead of unleashing his full fury
tenor. Helps that he mostly goes with standards -- gives you an
easy frame of reference, even if his "Cherokee" is pretty far
afield.
B+(***)

Gebhard Ullmann/Chris Dahlgren/Jay Rosen: Cut It Out
(2000 [2006], Leo): Not sure what's going on here. Ullmann plays bass
clarinet and bass flute, which with bass and drums keeps everything
down in the seismology range.
[B]

Mimi Fox: Perpetually Hip (2005 [2006], Favored
Nations, 2CD): Jazz guitarist, on her seventh album since 1987.
Nickname is Fast Fingers -- she doesn't strike me as particularly
fast or fancy, but she does pick out a strong line and she keeps
her balance rhythmically. First disc is a small group -- piano,
bass, drums, extra percussion on two cuts -- and it hums along
nicely. Second disc is solo, and it holds together as well. Don't
know her earlier work, and I'm not quite sure what to make of
this, but won't mind studying it further.
[B+(**)]

Michy Mano: The Cool Side of the Pillow (2003 [2005],
Enja/Justin Time): Mano is a Moroccan DJ, working in Norway since "his
early twenties" -- however long that is. Sings, plays sentir, works up
a mix of gnawa roots with electrobeats and scattered exotics from the
Oslo melting pot -- Madagascar, India, not sure where else, but the
guitarist is named Niklai Bielenberg Ivanovich and the beatmaster is
named Paolo Vinaccia. The producer is Norwegian jazz pianist Bugge
Wesseltoft, also providing keyboards and programming. One piece is
a rap -- sounds like French but the intro is probably Arabic. Others
may be folk songs, with chant vocals as much in the background as fore.
Jazz content is minor, but Bendikt Hofseth's tenor sax carresses the
vocals.
B+(***)

Sonando: Tres (2006, Origin): More gringos. Fred Hoadley
took his Berklee education to Seattle and founded a salsa band in 1983,
Bochinche, then moved on to Afro-Cuban with the founding of Sonando in
1990. He plays piano and tres guitar, and looks like the leader here.
Tom Bergersen studied conga at Stanford. Chris Stromquist went all the
way to Cuba for six weeks of bata instruction. Ben Verdier (bass), Chris
Stover (trombone), and Jim Coile (saxphones, flute) are also regulars,
but the record employs quite a few extras. The group has the basics down,
and Hoadley's tres is particularly elegant. But compared to the model
music I've heard out of Cuba, they keep it simple and moderate, easy
to follow and enjoy. That's no knock: I'd rather hear them push the
limits of their second language, which they do, than hear someone else
water down their first, even though both can be useful bridges.
B+(**)

Bill Coon/Oliver Gannon: Two Much Guitar (2004 [2005],
Cellar Live): I don't know, maybe I'm just getting soft on guitar at
long last. Two Vancouver-based guitarists aided by bass and drums.
Some of this is clearly electric, but most is subtly picked out, a
steady flow that's hard to resist. Coon has been playing for twenty
years, since 1995 in Vancouver. He has a previous trio album with
the same bass-drums as here. Gannon is somewhat older -- why is it
nobody bothers to put when they were born on their websites? --
with scattered credits going back to 1978, but only one record (as
far as I've been able to find out) under his own name.
B+(**)

Jon Faddis: Teranga (2005 [2006], Koch): Back in
1974-75 Norman Granz had Oscar Peterson do a series of Trumpet
Kings records -- Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Sweets Edison,
not sure who else -- which turned out to be mostly disappointing,
but the surprise, for me at least, there was one with Jon Faddis.
He was barely past 21 at the time, an electrifying player, but
he's had what seems like a nondescript career ever since then.
For instance, the current Penguin Guide doesn't even give him an
entry, and past editions have only credited him with one 3.5-star
album. This comes down to career choices, and the choices Faddis
made didn't produce much of a recorded legacy -- nine records in
thirty years. Charlie Shavers used to have an act where he'd riff
through the trumpet tradition, doing his impersonations of Louis
Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie and others, but those
guys were Shavers' contemporaries -- he was saying, hey no big
deal, I can do this shit too. Faddis grew up in awe of those guys,
learned to imitate them, and that's where he got pigeonholed. He
was so good at it Dizzy Gillespie kept him on hand for years as
backup and for relief. Reminds me of the story where a cat was
dismissed for merely copying Charlie Parker; he then shoved his
alto sax at the detractor and said, "here, let's see you copy
Charlie Parker." Faddis also worked in the shadows of big bands,
filled in on studio dates; finally he moved into the big money
institutions, directing the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band. This is
roughly the same career path that Wynton Marsalis, eight years
younger than Faddis, took, but Marsalis did a better job of
separating himself from his idols, wrote and recorded more,
and got a lot more hype -- in other words, the main difference
between Faddis and Marsalis is modesty vs. arrogance. For proof
of that, see Faddis's new album. He rips into some high note stuff
like you rarely hear these days and it's not obvious where it comes
from -- must be his own. But mostly you notice that he slots his
trumpet into the rhythmic roil rather than soaring beyond it: no
showboat virtuosity here, just serious chops. Most of the album is
quartet, and the rhythm section is exceptional: David Hazeltine is
superb as usual on piano, but unexpected muscle comes from bassist
Kiyoshi Kitagawa and drummer Dion Parson. Then there are guests.
On most albums these days, guest shots are diversions, breaking
the flow, but Senegalese drums, Frank Wess flute and Gary Smulyan
baritone, one song each, are seamlessly integrated. Two diversions
in the middle are something else. One is a duet with guitarist
Russell Malone, a relative quiet spot. The other brings in Clark
Terry for a second trumpet and a dish of verbal chop suey, with
Faddis joining in. Breaks in the flow like that are plusses.
Another play or two and I may have a Pick Hit.
A-

The Uptown Quintet: Live in New York (2004 [2006],
Cellar Live): A departure for the label, both in featuring non-Canadians
and in presenting something not recorded in Vancouver's Cellar. File
the group under pianist Spike Wilner, who wrote three of seven songs,
but also note front line Ryan Kisor (trumpet) and Ian Hendrickson-Smith
(alto sax), who add strong voices and a song apiece. As the names show,
this is a strong, mainstream, blues-swinging group. The atmosphere is
relaxed, they're comfortable, this is what they do.
B+(*)

Guillaume de Chassy/Daniel Yvinec: Wonderful World
(2004-05 [2006], Sunnyside): Piano and bass, respectively, although
they mostly fill in around a set of voice samples "recorded on a
cheap machine on the streets of New York City." Those include
half-spoken, half-sung takes on "What a Wonderful World," "It
Could Happen to You," and so forth, as well as song introductions
and commentaries. A slight concept, but appealingly offhanded.
B+(*)

Elliott Caine Quintet: Blues From Mars (2005 [2006],
EJC Music): Standard issue hard bop quintet, led by the trumpeter,
with a few extra frills: vibes (DJ Bonebrake) on three cuts, congas
on three more for a little Latin tinge, and theremin for the space
effects on the title track. Bright, blues-based, swings; probably
fun live, but at home you're more likely to reach for Lee Morgan.
B

Nils Petter Molvaer: An American Compilation
(2001-06 [2006], Thirsty Ear): There are precedents for trumpet
over beats: Miles Davis's funk fusion, Jon Hassell's fourth world
exotica. More recently: Russell Gunn, Erik Truffaz, and to some
extent Dave Douglas, Nicholas Payton, Wallace Roney. I'm not sure
when Norwegian trumpeter Molvaer tapped into this vein: certainly
by 1996 when he started work on Khmer (ECM), but earlier
idea probably appear with his Masqualero group, which dates back
the the mid-'80s. Khmer was dominated by synth beats, a
relentless chug-a-lug like a toy engine that pulled everything
forward. The follow-up, Solid Ether (ECM) was more varied,
with a more expansive soundscape. The earlier title suggested an
interest in Hassell, but nothing musically connected the work to
Southeast Asia, and Molvaer's subsequent work feels more Nordic
than ever. After the ECM records, Molvaer's discography gets
messy, especially for Americans. A new studio album (np3)
and some remixes (Recoloured, Remakes) came out on
Universal subsidiaries somewhere in Europe. A live album (Live:
Steamer) and another studio album (er) came out on
Molvaer's Sula label. The latter two albums will get a US release
later this year on Thirsty Ear's Blue Series -- already long on
smart jazztronica thanks to Matthew Shipp's avant-DJ convergence.
But first, at a matter of introduction, we get this primer. I wish
I knew better where these pieces came from -- looks like about
half come from np3, although different mixes are always
a possibility. It's less immediately striking than the previous
studio albums -- more atmospheric, less machine-like -- so it
takes a while for the picture to flesh out. Perhaps most striking
of all is a closing ballad sung by Sidsel Endresen, "Only These
Things Count."
A-

Trio Beyond (Jack DeJohnette, Larry Goldings, John Scofield):
Saudades (2004 [2006], ECM, 2CD): The concept here was
to do a Tony Williams Lifetime thing -- cf. Emergency!, a
1969 album with Williams on drums, John McLaughlin on guitar, and
Larry Young on organ. DeJohnette is a fair match for Williams, but
Scofield and Goldings twist the dial away from Young and McLaughlin's
more outré fusion back toward soul jazz. Nothing much wrong with
that, especially with them playing hotter than they have in years,
but nothing much new with it either.
B+(*)

John Tchicai/Charlie Kohlhase/Garrison Fewell: Good Night
Songs (2003 [2006], Boxholder, 2CD): Both Tchicai and Kohlhase
play various reeds -- bass clarinet and various saxes -- while Fewell
plays guitar. The former are milder than usual, and the latter blends
in, making this subtler and more atmospheric than I expected.
[B+(*)]

Toby Koenigsberg Trio: Sense (2005 [2006], Origin):
Piano trio, young guys who grew up together, based in Seattle. After
Kimbrough, I'm immediately struck by how much livelier this is -- not
just that it goes faster but slow spots develop in more interesting
ways. Some of this is repertoire: a couple of Bud Powell pieces, a
couple of variations on "Stella by Starlight."
B+(**)

And these are final grades/notes on records I put back for further
listening the first time around.

Planet Jazz: In Orbit (2005 [2006], Sharp Nine):
This is a tribute band to little known drummer Johnny Ellis, who
died in 1999 at age 44. Ellis wrote most of the songs, commonly
playing the others -- pieces by Charlie Shavers, Hampton Hawes,
Duke Ellington-Johnny Hodges. In fact, so many Ellis alumni are
on board that this could be considered his ghost band. Pianist
Spike Wilner is the main mover here, and he's pulled together a
solid mainstream band -- saxophonist Grant Stewart, trumpeter
Joe Mangarelli, guitarist Peter Berstein. The covers take off,
but the Ellis originals -- nonsense like "The Cow Is Now" and
"The Lemur Is a Dreamer" -- don't quite make it.
B

David Berger & the Sultans of Swing: Hindustan
(2005 [2006], Such Sweet Thunder): The title here is à propos of
nothing -- it may put you in mind of The Far East Suite, but
the record offers nothing Ellingtonian beyond the instrumentation
of the big band. The gem-like arrangements do have some allure, and
Aria Hendricks's few vocals have some charm, but the Sultans come
up short of swing, and you know what that means.
B

Fred Anderson: Timeless: Live at the Velvet Lounge
(2005 [2006], Delmark): The weak spot here is Hamid Drake's vocal,
but that's just something you put up with to hear his drumming. I
can't say as I ever got into Anderson before Back at the Velvet
Lounge (2002 [2003], Delmark), but he's been on a streak ever
since then: Back Together Again, a duo with Hamid Drake;
Blue Winter, a trio with Drake and William Parker; and now
this trio with Drake and Harrison Bankhead. I resisted at first,
figuring the records have little differentiation, and I shouldn't
keep pushing the same thing over and over. But critical consensus
seems to be that this is the winner, and I can hear that. Bankhead
helps fill things out like a good bassist should but isn't tempted
to crowd in like Parker. Also this one is a single.
A-

Jazz Consumer Guide #9: Surplus

One task I face every time I finish a Jazz Consumer Guide is to
sort through the long list of records I didn't review and trim them
back. I try to make realistic assessments. I can cover thirty or
so records each Jazz Consumer Guide. At the end of the ninth round
I had 150 rated but unused records. I've cut them back by about
half, although new records keep pushing the raw numbers back up.
Most of the records that survived this cut still won't make it.

Starting with Jazz Consumer Guide #7 I've written prospecting
notes as I've gone along. In most cases the prospecting notes, or
reviews I've separately published in Recycled Goods, suffice, but
one part of this exercise is to write brief reviews/notes on at
least some of the surplus records. The surplus notes follow. For
the complete list of surplus cuts this round, see the
surplus file.

The main reason behind these cuts is lack of space. As I've
explained before, I make these choices for all sorts of reasons.
Some of these records, for instance, were reviewed more or less
satisfactorily by others in the Village Voice, especially Francis
Davis. In some cases I've just never found the words for them,
so they've gotten old and I've decided to stop looking at them.
Often a new record will push an old record off the list. In cases
like these the cut may have little to do with quality or rating:
good records get pushed out. In fact, except for a few records I
hang on to as possible duds, the surplus records are better than
average, sometimes much so.

The Season Finale of the Abu Zarqawi Hour

A couple of days ago I pointed out that the best response to the
news that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been killed, or indeed to any of
the news reports that seem fleetingly positive for the Bush project,
is to ask, Now, can we go home? Of course, the response of most
commentators, stuck in the rut of the obvious, was to remind us that
the war would grind on -- that there are no shortage of salafi-jihadis
willing to step into Zarqawi's shoes, even with martyrdom their almost
certain fate. But what makes that so obviously true is the assumption
that the US occupation of Iraq is permanent -- something we accept as
immovable, inevitable, endless. My question seeks to get us out of that
box. If we can't go home now, why? If we have to "stay the course,"
just where does that course go? Are we in fact on the course we think
we're on? Or are we just wandering around aimlessly, refusing to ask
directions?

These are basic questions, in that they help expose the basic void
in our thinking about Iraq. Why are we there? What do we hope to
accomplish? Nobody knows the answers to those questions. All we know
for sure is that the reasons we've been given are false. Lately they
don't even bother to feed us false reasons. We seem to have entered
some kind of weird "don't ask, don't tell" zone: nobody asks why we
are in Iraq, so nobody has to listen to whatever cracked absurdities
they might come up with. One consequence of not having trackable goals,
analyzable plans, or any fucking clue, is that we miss opportunities
to do the only sane thing possible, which is to get the hell out of
there. Can we come home, now?

Think about it for just a minute. Let's say for the sake of argument
that the problem with Iraq is the Resistance, which creates chaos and
disorder, fear and violence, death and destruction, all bad things. So
how do you get rid of the Resistance? The only sure way to get rid of
Resistance is to remove what it's resisting against, and that's the US
occupation forces. I shouldn't have to explain why or how the US causes
this resistance, but two points are especially important: resistance
started the moment US forces invaded Iraq; and everything bad that the
US has done in Iraq, deliberately or otherwise, has been amplified --
made to appear worse -- by the resistance. In other words, resistance
is a function of US occupation, and it generates positive feedback --
everything the US does in Iraq to try to fight the resistance makes it
worse. The physics analogies are imperfect but approximately correct:
the only thing the US can do to reduce the damage caused by Resistance
is to unplug it. To do that, we must go home. Nothing else works.

Unfortunately, Bush, his warriors, and his fan club don't begin to
understand this. They believe in killing bad guys. They believe that
if they can just kill enough of them they'll win. They believe that
social order is based on fear of power, and once the people of Iraq
fear them enough they'll be secure in their power. Zarqawi to them
is a high value target: not just a dead bad guy, but an example to
all those who would oppose him. So to them this is a bit of momentum
to drive harder -- not a rare chance to extricate themselves from a
hopeless disaster and still save a little face.

One question is how much good does it do to kill or take out the
leader of a guerrilla war. Clearly there are some cases where taking
out the leader brought movements to an end. A couple of examples are
Che Guevara in Bolivia and the Abimael Guzman (Shining Path) in Peru.
But those cases had far less traction than what we see in Iraq, and
were often the work of irreplaceably charismatic leaders. Whether
Zarqawi was such a leader is unclear, but one has to be suspicious
of how useful he was to US propagandists both in characterizing the
resistance as non-Iraqi (he was Jordanian) and linked to Al Qaeda
(thereby retroactively establishing a War on Terror purpose). Nir
Rosen addresses these questions in a CNN Interview:

PHILLIPS: First reaction to the capture of Zarqawi. From what I
understand, you think we're going a bit overboard with this coverage
and he's not as big a fish as everyone is making him out to be?

ROSEN: He certainly was a symbol. However, Zarqawi was, in a way --
the myth of Zarqawi was an American creation. In the beginning of the
insurgency, the American's government, the American military, wanted
to create the impression that the insurgency was foreign-dominated,
was not a popular Iraqi movement. So they blamed almost every attack
on Zarqawi, creating this myth of Zarqawi that then encouraged Arabs
throughout the region to go join his cause.

But, in truth, Zarqawi and his group of foreign fighters were a
very small proportion of the resistance of the insurgency. They were,
of course, responsible for some terrible attacks. But the dynamics in
Iraq and the civil war is going to persist no matter who is killed,
because this is conflict between the Shia government, the Shia
population, and the Sunni population at this point.

PHILLIPS: So you're saying that even though he was an exceptionally
cruel person, he was -- we knew that he had beheaded innocent
individuals. He was behind a number of bombings. You don't think this
will make an impact at all on the insurgency?

ROSEN: I think, if anything, this is, in an way, an advertisement.
Zarqawi's death, ironically enough, might be an advertisement for his
cause. Zarqawi came to Iraq to fight the infidels and obtain martyrdom.
Well, he did. And now, this is just -- proves to aspiring jihadis around
the world Iraq is the place to go avenge Zarqawi's death, to fight
infidels and become a martyr and go to paradise just like Zarqawi did.

I think what we're going to see is some new unit. It will be called
the Zarqawi brigade, the Zarqawi battalion, and they're going to claim
responsibility for some very important attack against a Shia leader or
a Shia mosque or Shia civilians. And the dynamics of the civil war
will continue, regardless of any particular individual.

So you can hash the charisma argument many ways, but the more
important point is that Zarqawi was the leader of just one of many
factions in the Resistance -- arguably one much more important to
the US for its propaganda value than to the Resistance in general,
especially given Zarqawi's evident role in promoting sectarian
civil war. Others will no doubt take up Zarqawi's sword, but for
much of the Resistance his death resolves an embarrassment: they
can honor him for fighting the Americans without having to continue
his divisive terror against the Shiites. Meanwhile, US propaganda
has to go on without its poster boy. As Gen. Mark Kimmitt said, "The
Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information campaign to
date."

An article in the New York Times today admits that there are many
unresolved questions surrounding Zarqawi. Like: given that two 500 lb.
bombs vaporized the walls of Zarqawi's "safe house," how come they
were able to photograph his dead body completely intact? Makes you
wonder, too, how they got those outtakes from Zarqawi's propaganda
film showing him mishandling his gun. The long history of US deceit
on all things Iraq, as well as the general practice of operating in
secret, gives Official Spokesmen very little credibility these any
more. The US press has dutifully reported what Billmon called "[The
Pentagon Channel's] long-running reality TV series, The Abu Zarqawi
Hour, but it's never been clear how much was fact and how much
was fiction.

In particular, while Zarqawi fit American expectations of how an
indescribably evil terrorist acts, some Iraqis had their doubts. Two
quotes from Wikipedia illustrate this. Muqtada al-Sadr said this of
Zarqawi: "I believe he is fictitious. He is a knife or a pistol in
the hands of the occupier. I believe that all three -- the occupation,
the takfir supporters, and the Saddam supporters -- stem from the same
source, because the takfir supporters and the Saddam supporters are a
weapon in the hands of America. America pins its crimes on them." A
Sunni insurgent leader said: "Zarqawi is an American, Israeli and
Iranian agent who is trying to keep out country unstable so that the
Sunnis will keep facing occupation."

Those two quotes strike me as evasive, based on embarrassment over
Zarqawi's anti-Americanism. Both speakers no doubt understand that
Zarqawi's war attacks America primarily to legitimize itself in order
to further its real aim: to purge Islam of all who do not adhere to
their strict, militant salafism -- i.e., all Shiites, most Sunnis.
Zarqawi's effect, then, has been to divide and weaken the resistance,
allowing the US occupation to blunder forward. Given the way this has
actually played out, it's easy to see how Bush and Bin Laden complement
each other. Both feed on fear and hatred, each the antipodal evil that
justifies the other.

If Bush had had the foresight to script his presidency, he couldn't
have done better than to have invented some nemesis like Bin Laden.
When all the dirty laundry eventually comes clean, I can't help but
wonder if we'll find out that the US had in fact invented Zarqawi.

Now, Can We Go Home?

Back when Saddam Hussein was captured in his spider hole near
Tikrit, Howard Dean was the frontrunner for the Democratic Party
presidential nomination. The statement he made then started to
unravel his campaign. He said that capturing Saddam had not made
Americans any safer. Strictly speaking, what he said was not false.
It was just irrelevant. It was like saying that capturing Saddam
had not made Americans taller, or fatter. One way to check that
such statements were irrelevant would have been to assert their
opposites: did capturing Saddam make us slimmer? shorter? more
at risk? Clearly not. Arguing that capturing Saddam had anything
to do with whether we were safer or not betrayed a simple mistake
on Dean's part. He was thinking about terrorism, but Saddam had
nothing to do with terrorism. He should have been thinking about
something that Saddam had something to do with: Iraq.

What Dean should have said was: Great! Hooray! I have to admit,
I had my doubts, but that George W. Bush pulled it off! He did it!
Accomplished all his goals! I mean, now we got Saddam and killed off
his idiot sons. And we've cleared up all that WMD misunderstanding,
so that's no longer hanging over us. So all that takes care of all
of our goals over there, except for leaving, but that'll be the
easy part. And that'll show all those skeptics that we actually
did come as liberators, and not as occupiers. Right? We're leaving
now, aren't we? We are liberators, aren't we? Bush didn't really
have some hidden agenda, now did he?

In fact, that's what Dean and every other responsible politician
should have said at each and every "milestone" and "turning point"
in the war. It's that simple: now, can we go home? Try it
yourself. It's not that hard, is it? Now, can we go home?
Today was another of those turning points, as officials announced
that arch-terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed today. Good
news, that is. All together: Now, can we go home?

Zarqawi's death isn't the obvious turning point that Dean so
fumbled, but at least it's a short respite, a brief chance to claim
something and get the hell out -- like before we create another
comparable menace. Zarqawi had no role in whatever Bush's initial
intentions were. Basically, he was such a small fry that nobody
worried about him. Hell, Saddam didn't even worry about him, and
Saddam was one paranoid motherfucker! The only thing that could
turn someone like Zarqawi into a real monster was an occupier --
an alien force of arrogance, ignorance and ineptitude, which is
exactly what Bush's crusaders shown themselves to be. At this
point Zarqawi's resistance will hardly miss a beat, but it will
take months before the US is able to hype another face up to the
point where he can fill Zarqawi's wanted poster. During tha time
the resistance will enjoy a certain anonymity which would make
it easier to walk away from. If Bush had any sense, he should do
just that -- who knows when the next "turning point" will look
so good? Encourage him: Now, can we go home?

David Murray Genius Guide

The Village Voice's annual Jazz Supplement seems to be out, or at
least it's up on the web. Or most of it -- don't see the introduction
that I heard supplement editor Robert Christgau wrote. The cover
title is "The Genius Guide to Jazz." Needless to say, the insides
don't live up to that claim, but "A Guide to Five Jazz Geniuses"
would be hard to argue with. My bit was to write up a guide to
David
Murray. The other four guides are:

Garrett Shelton wrote in to thank me for writing about a living
jazz musician. The other four are long gone, with Sun Ra the last
to depart in 1993. I can't say as I thought of it that way, and I
doubt that Christgau noticed it either, but it's a matter of some
sensitivity, understandably so. There have been two big nosedives
in the popularity of jazz. The first occurred in the 1940s when swing
hit a fork and bebop took the high road into virtuosic art music --
a path that only got steeper with later revolts of the avant-garde --
while everyone else took the low road into pop, r&b, and rock and
roll. The second came in the 1970s as a critical mass of undisputed
jazz legends died off or faded from sight, taking a big chunk of the
industry with them. Few jazz musicians who came up in the '70s or
later -- well, even the '60s -- got the sort of exposure that would
turn them into legends in the public mind. (Cecil Taylor and Steve
Lacy may seem like partial exceptions, but their discographies start
around 1956-57.)

This probably comes from having a sociology background and being
a baseball history expert, but I'm an inveterate ranker. (Can't be
that I harbor a closet preference for hierarchical social orders.)
So here's one, my all-time tenor saxophone list: Coleman Hawkins,
Sonny Rollins, David Murray, Stan Getz, John Coltrane, Ben Webster,
Lester Young, uhh, at this point you hit a thick crowd with guys
like Gene Ammons, Don Byas, Joe Henderson, Roland Kirk, Sam Rivers,
and Lucky Thompson, with Ken Vandermark the most likely to advance.
Other people would juggle this top seven around a bit -- probably
moving Coltrane and/or Young up -- but anybody who leaves Murray
off that list just hasn't been paying attention. Unfortunately,
most people, and that includes most jazz critics -- just look at
Downbeat's polls -- have missed Murray. In fact, those people
have missed most of what's happened in jazz in the last thirty-some
years, and they're still missing what's happening today.

Same basic thing has happened all across the board. Anthony
Braxton is about as good an example as Murray, although he's a
little more difficult for most people to get into. (I'd put him
Coleman and Art Pepper; ahead of Benny Carter, Lee Konitz, and
Charlie Parker.) But the more examples I throw out, the further
we get away from the point: if we don't write about musicians
while they're still alive, we're suffocating the art. The point
is well taken, but it's also off the point here. Legends tend to
be old, and old people sooner or later wind up dead. What Robert
Christgau wanted to do with this Jazz Supplement was to create
something that he felt wasn't readily available: a good, short,
expert but accessible primer on several key figures. The idea,
as I understand it, came from some work, which I haven't seen,
that Farah Jasmine Griffin had done on Billie Holiday, so she got
slotted first. The other four pages were mix-and-match given the
usual writers and what would be relatively easy for them to do.
Francis Davis is working on a Coltrane book. John Szwed published
a book on Sun Ra a while back; assigning him to do a guide filled
out a need. Monk is a touchstone figure for Christgau, so I don't
know whether he or Blumenfeld came up with that idea. The last
piece was originally supposed to be on Ray Barretto, but that
turned out to be a stretch for the assigned writer, so Christgau
called me up and was desperate, offering to let me do anyone.
Two names he quickly mentioned were Webster and Vandermark, but
he was sold the moment I named Murray. He's followed Murray a
long time -- a benefit of editing Gary Giddins. In fact, he's
the one who turned me on to Low Class Conspiracy back in
the late '70s.

It'll be interesting to see what he response is. This is a
pretty simple way of doing the Jazz Supplement -- more fun and
less sweat than trying to write major essays, and possibly more
useful. But another idea might be to do critic-selected multiple
artist guides limited to living musicians. Plenty to choose from
there, too.

When I wrote the Murray Guide, I also wrote up a "Postscript
and Disclaimer" which provided a little more context for what
I selected as well as established the limits of what I haven't
been able to evaluate. I offered to let the Voice post this on
their website, and maybe they still will. But I haven't heard
anything more about it, so it would be most useful to post it
here:

I've read reports that Murray's recorded 200-300 records. The
figures above (90 + 90) are all I've been able to verify, but
those numbers are most likely somewhat short. The division
between leader and sideman is somewhat arbitrary. His records
are hard to find. I've gone out of my way to follow him, and
still I've only heard heard 60 + 40 of them. No doubt I've
missed some real good ones. I haven't heard 3D Family (1978,
Hat Art), which he's kept as the name of his company. I've
missed a bunch of the DIWs -- Remembrances (1991) has an
especially strong reputation.

A lot of Murray records didn't miss the above list by much. Here's
a quick rundown, plus a few comments:

Flowers for Albert: The Complete Concert (1976, India Navigation)
is the only early live album I've heard. Several others have made
it to CD: Flowers for Albert (1977, West Wind); Live at the Lower
Manhattan Ocean Club (1977, Indian Navigation); The London Concert
(1978, Cadillac).

Home (1981, Black Saint) and Murray's Steps (1982, Black
Saint): further adventures with the Octet, a group that returns for Octet
Plays Trane (1999, Justin Time).

I Want to Talk About You (1986, Black Saint): A live trio that ties
this period together.

Special Quartet (1990, DIW): With McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones, not
to mention Fred Hopkins.

Body and Soul (1993, Black Saint): Another twist on the Hawkins
classic.

The Tip and Jug-a-Lug (1994, DIW): Two upbeat sets with organ
and electric guitars, one with "Sex Machine."

Murray has also recorded drum duos with Kahil El'Zabar, but Love
Outside of Dreams (1997, Delmark) has something extra -- one of
Fred Hopkins's last performances.

I don't like the strings on Waltz Again (2002, Justin Time), but
the saxophone is magnificent.

With 20 albums to date, Murray's longest-running side-project is
the World Saxophone Quartet, formed in 1977 with Julius Hemphill,
Oliver Lake, and Hamiett Bluiett. Hemphill was the main arranger
until illness sidelined him in 1990. His records, with four saxes
and nothing else, follow a purism I've never enjoyed and often
found tedious. The later records are more eclectic, often with
extra musicians as well as whoever they could find for Hemphill's
slot. One of the best is the African drums-enhanced Selim Sivad:
A Tribute to Miles Davis (1998, Justin Time).

One of the best sideman albums is Kip Hanrahan's Conjure, Music
for the Texts of Ishmael Reed (1983, American Clavé), eventually
followed by Bad Mouth (2005, American Clavé).

Also: D.D. Jackson, Peace-Song (1994, Justin Time).

Murray has never had a box set, a best-of, a compilation of any
sort. He did get a role in Robert Altman's Kansas City, as Ben
Webster. Also played on the Roots, Illadelph Halflife (1996,
DGC).

Hit Me One More Time

Looks like Bush has finally been able to take some time away
from all the real issues he's been avoiding to concentrate on
something important merely to himself: the campaign to save the
Republican congress in 2006. Months of meticulously scientific
polling must have gone into the identification of the one key
issue the Republicans can run on: a constitutional amendment to
ban gay marriage. For reaction out here in Kansas, see Richard
Crowson's Wichita Eagle cartoon:

Regardless of what you think about gay marriage, the idea of
changing the constitution to take rights away from people or states
doesn't seem to have much appeal. Reports are that only one Senate
Democrat -- ever lost Ben Nelson of Nebraska -- would support it
would doom it even if no Republicans had second thoughts. So from
a practical standpoint, this is much ado about nothing. But maybe
that's the best alternative the Republicans have to everything?

Homosexuality has been very good for the Republicans. Their
ability to link state constitutional referendums on gay marriage
to the 2004 presidential election helped them rally their most
foolish supporters. Relentless pounding on that issue managed to
force Kerry and Edwards awkwardly off topic, and when they tried
to dish some back by pointing out just who among the candidates
actually has homosexual offspring, all they managed was to do was
to win sympathy for the Cheneys for standing by their poor dyke
daughter.

But an even bigger bonanza for the Republicans was the way the
"gays in the military" fiasco undermined Clinton's authority to stand
up to the Pentagon, and therefore to the whole military-industrial
megastate. James Carroll discusses this in House of War,
providing a lot more background and detail than I can go into here,
but here are a few summary quotes:

In truth, to his [Clinton's] opponents in the Pentagon, the
question of gays in the military was a deliverance, another version of
the Korean War and the Gulf War as unexpected sources of reinforcement
for the martial ethos. "The high priests of the nuclear age," General
Butler told me in the 1990s, "are having great difficulty letting go"
of their status and the weapons on which their status depends. Because
of the galvanizing issue of homosexuality, they would not have to.
[p. 459]

Colin Powell first met with President-elect Clinton on November 19,
1992. By his own account, Powell says that it was he, not Clinton, who
brought up the subject of homosexuals in the military. And it was the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, in their first meeting with the new president,
on January 25, 1993, five days after his swearing in, who did the
same. Clinton did not bring up the issue. In his memoir,
Clinton says the Chiefs expressed an "urgent" concern about it. They
pushed the question to the top of his agenda. Whether consciously or
not, the brass were cooperating with a wily Republican ploy, led by
Senator Robert Dole, who became an early foe of Clinton's. Because of
the strong showing of the third-party candidate H. Ross Perot, Clinton
had been elected with a paltry 43 percent of the vote, which made him
vulnerable to Republican opposition. Picking up on what had been
merely one of a dozen hot-button campaign issues, Dole threw the
gays-in-the-military question onto the tracks in front of the new
administration, hoping for derailment. It worked. But the derailment
assumed an all but overt threat from the Joint Chiefs, including the
chairman, that they would not carry out an order from Clinton lifting
the ban. [p. 459-460]

We have seen that in debates after Saddam Hussein's invasion of
Kuwait, Powell had opposed President Bush on launching the Gulf War,
yet once Bush had decided to commit, Powell had saluted, obeyed, and
made it happen. He had done the same thing late in the Bush term, when
the president ordered Operation Restore Hope, the humanitarian mission
to Somalia. But on the question of gays, put to him by Bill Clinton,
there was to be only opposition, and no salute.

Powell, of course, denies that. "My life would have been easier if
he [Clinton] had simply lifted the ban by executive order. The
military would have said, 'Yes, Sir.' But, as Les Aspin knew, almost
immediately Congress would have enacted a ban as a matter of law,
forcing the President to veto it, and confronting him with an almost
certain veto override. What makes this explanation disingenuous is the
fact that congressional opposition was firmly braced by the prior,
well-known opposition of the military Chiefs, especially their
chairman. And the Chiefs, confronted at the start with Aspin's
surrender, were given no reason to mitigate their opposition. The
Clinton administration, that is, came into office showing that it
expected not to exercise authority over the military on this
question. [p. 461]

In September 1993, three months after Clinton instituted the
policy, an act approving "Don't ask, don't tell" was passed by
Congress, which elevated the policy from the relatively lowly realm of
military regulations to a law of the land. This was a disaster for gay
people and for the honor of the military, since the policy was based
on universal deception. But what compounded the disaster was the way
the controversy destroyed Clinton's authority with the Pentagon, and
therefore his ability to shape an alternative approach to security in
the post-Cold War world.

Powell's responsibility for all this was enormous. It was no
coincidence that the six-month "study" period coincided with the
months remaining in Powell's term as chairman. Rather than confront
Powell on the question or risk the political fallout if he resigned
early, Clinton let it ride. As Powell knew, that ducking of the
decision itself gave him his victory, for, on an issue that, however
peripheral, had taken on enormous cultural and political significance,
the president of the United States deferred to the open dissent of the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs. After that, no wonder the sailor aboard
the Theodore Roosevelt felt free to refuse to salute his
commander in chief. But the president's exercise of authority on gays
in the military could have gone another way, and indeed, on an
equivalent issue forty years before, presidential authority
had. [p. 462]

Carroll then reviews Harry Truman's order to desegregate the US
military:

The Colin Powell of the day, General Omar Bradley, did not like
Truman's stated intention to change things, any more than Powell liked
Clinton's. Bradley told an interviewer that he understood Trumans'
order to require not integration of blacks but a military version of
"separate but equal." Truman publicly rebuked Bradley, Bradley
publicly apologized, and that was the end of that. Integration, full
and complete, was the expectation. As the first chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, Bradley went on to preside over the most successful
social revolution of the day, with the result that the military was
the first American institution to be authentically
integrated. [p. 463-464]

However:

The military authority Clinton inherited, that is, was hollow
compared to what Truman had taken for granted. This was also a matter
of the power that accrued to Truman from the rise of the Soviet
threat; in Clinton's case, presidential pwoer had slipped as that
threat disappeared. Questions about Clinton's draft record and about
gays in the military only exposed that hollowness for all to see,
including those behind the one-way windows across the river.
[ . . . ]
With Clinton, the Pentagon would not even pretend to salute,
especially once his self-destructive promiscuity undermined what
little moral authority he had, but draft dodging and gays together
formed a cloak of pretense over what actually mattered most. As the
(to them) frighteningly unreliable Bill Clinton entered office, the
power the Pentagon was dead serious about maintaining was over nuclear
weapons, not over the sexual activities of soldiers. In the odd
dispensation of the warrior ethos, however, the two things soon came
to be related. Routing Clinton on gays at the beginning of his
administration was a harbinger of the Pentagon's total defeat of every
attempt to step back from Cold War arsenals and attitudes.

"Don't ask, don't tell" was, in fact, an apt metaphor for the
Pentagon's message to the American public about its own fetish with
nuclear weapons, which, like the traditional ban on gays, no longer
had any national security justification. The furor over homosexuality
early in Clinton's term, in other words, had far more significance
than is usually realized. [p. 465-466]

Carroll had previously discussed Clinton's draft record, which
reappears in the gays fiasco to establish a pattern of vacilation.
So let's go back to that quote:

First, there was the matter of Clinton's self-styled status as an
avatar of the sixties, which, in the Building, remained code for a
decadent culture of self-indulgence, the opposite of martial
virtue. After the institutional crisis of Vietnam, the Pentagon threw
up walls abainst all that seemed to have made it possible, ironically
becoming its own version of a counterculture, a center of
"traditional" values. It did not matter that Clinton's achievement --
his life's journey from an impoverished, broken family in the Ozarks
to the White House -- was, despite the junk food, a triumph of
self-discipline worthy of a great general. Clinton was the first
president since Franklin Roosevelt not to have served in uniform
(though never in uniform, FDR had been assistant secretary of the Navy
before being stricken with polio).

Worse, Clinton's Republican opponents had come close to sticking
him with the label "draft dodger," although most voters, remembering
the complexities of Vietnam, had concluded that was unfair. Indeed,
for many of his generation, the choices Clinton had made regarding his
military service in the late 1960s felt quite familiar. If there was a
mystery about Clinton's record, it was why he seemed to agree with
Republicans that it was something to be ashamed of. After all,
history's verdict on Vietnam was already in. Clinton had recognized it
as a mistaken, even an immoral, war, and had declined to
serve. Clinton had been right about Vietnam.

Perhaps military people would not have held his avoidance of
Vietnam against him if only he had forthrightly taken responsibility
for his choices. But he never did -- not during the election and not
in the early months of his presidency. Clinton's apparent obfuscations
about his use of an ROTC appointment to avoid the draft (he was to do
his ROTC service at the University of Arkansas while in law school,
after Oxford) and then his abrupt withdrawal from the ROTC appointment
when he subsequently drew a high number in the Selective Service
lottery (enabling his preferred track to Yale Law School) were
infuriating. Why can't this guy say that he did everything he
legally could to avoid fighting in an immoral war, and that he's proud
of it?

But there was a problem, Clinton was palpably not proud, which made
it impossible for him to be forthright.
[ . . . ]
Over the years Clinton may have been confused about these obscure but
crucial points of timing and regulation, but as a presidential
candidate he seemed only to be dissembling.
[ . . . ]
Clinton's 1992 obfuscations to the reporter who had done the most to
ferret out the story were missed by a good part of the electorate, but
they became "a cornerstone" of distrust to journalists who knew the
record. If certain (though far from all) members of the press took
careful notice of how Clinton dealt with this issue, their scrutiny --
and judgmentalism -- was nothing compared to that of members of the
military. The dishonor was not in what he had done as a young man, but
in what he was doing now. [p. 455-457]

Clinton looked weak because he was weak: his relentless climb to
the top was built on his great skill at ingratiating himself with
the powerful, a pursuit that left him with no claim to principle --
least of all a principle that would challenge military orthodoxy.
But he also looked weak because he got attacked, and once the thugs
learned they could get away with it, they attacked him again and
again and again. Objectively, his draft dodge record wasn't much
better or worse than what Bush, Cheney, or other chickenhawks had
done. But the latter were never attacked like Clinton was because
they weren't outsiders -- they worked for the War Party. (Then, of
course, being mired in the reality-based community, the Democrats
nominate a guy who's objectively safe from any such threats, and
he gets attacked even worse. The sole basis for those attacks is
that they're code for who backs the military vs. who's suspected
of thinking independently.)

It this shows anything, it's the folly of letting the right set
the agenda. Clinton couldn't duck the issue, and he wouldn't fight
it, so he was just hung out to dry, looking both unprincipled and
impractical. He lost a few issues like that, then lost Democratic
control of Congress, then spent the rest of his two terms coping
inside the cage constructed by the Republicans, the military, and
the media. Maybe he could, as Carroll suggests, have just buckled
down and ordered the end of anti-gay discrimination and forced that
through like Truman did desegregation. Congress would have been
hard pressed to override a veto had he put his argument together
and twisted some arms. And the brass might have reconsidered had
he been willing to go beyond gays and start cutting some serious
money from their budgets -- missile defense, submarines, tanks in
Europe, nukes, shit that had no practical use with the Soviet Union
dismembered.

Had Clinton won the gays-in-the-army issue he would have been
perceived as something more than a punching bag, but so would gay
bashing. As it was, Republicans came to see it first and foremost
as a successful club for bashing Democrats: it reinforced the basic
idea of prohibitionism (not to mention fascism) that anything you
disapprove of should be criminalized; it made Democrats look queasy
as well as guilty because they mostly disapproved as well; and it
ultimately turned them into lawyers arguing for abstract legal
principles against emphatically held moral tenets. But had the
club failed -- and the military was pretty workable ground for
that, as we've seen with segregation -- they'd be much less prone
to reach for it again, and it'd be less likely to work. And the
Democrats wouldn't be facing the same crap over and over again.

On the other hand, the other thing Clinton could have done was
to slough off the gays issue -- back off on issuing a presidential
order and hand it over to the Chiefs to get back with a plan when
they figure out how to do it -- and assert his leadership on some
other issue, like killing missile defense. Had the post-Cold War
military shrunk under Clinton instead of expanding, it would have
been a lot harder for Bush to fly off the handle and invade Iraq --
if indeed he even had the chance, given that whatever peace dividend
Clinton could scrape out of the military's budget could have been
put to better use helping Americans. In fact, Clinton could have
solved Iraq by simply making an honest WMD accounting and dropping
sanctions, but he found it politically useful to keep an open sore
there as a reminder that the first Bush didn't have the balls to go
to Baghdad.

On the other hand, the good news from all the bad news is that
never before have the emperor's new clothes looked so tawdry. If the
best Boy Genius can think of to salvage the reign is a constitutional
amendment to pick on Massachusetts, the dirty tricks cupboard looks
pretty barren. And with credibility the Republicans' main liability,
they're likely to get less and less mileage out of their carefully
honed talking points, no matter how many times we have to suffer
through them from here to election day.

Music: Current count 11950 [11919] rated (+31), 871 [860] unrated (+11).
Jazz CG (#9) finally up. Recycled Goods (#32) up. Did tons of jazz
prospecting. Got more shit in the mail than I managed to listen to.
Still don't have the jazz surplus culled. Need to work on that.

Johnny Cash: All Aboard the Blue Train (1955-58
[2003], Varèse Sarabande): First 12 tracks are an album Sun threw
together in 1962, well after Cash left for Columbia, where he cut
a concept album, Ride This Train, relevant here. Not sure
how much to credit this album for classics like "Rock Island Line,"
"Hey Porter," "Folson Prison Blues," "There You Go," "Give My Love
to Rose," etc., all of which must have been on previous Sun albums.
Terrific version of "The Wreck of Old '97." Six bonus tracks,
mostly alternate versions. B+(**)

Johnny Cash: Now, There Was a Song! (1960 [1994],
Columbia/Legacy): A short (26:19) album of covers, subtitled "Memories
From the Past," released as Columbia was first trying to figure out how
to stretch their hot new country act. Of course, Cash is in remarkable
voice, handling songs from Hank Williams and George Jones without
risking complaint. Band is also just right. Not sure why I'm holding
back on the grade, other than the brevity, the obviousness, and the
fact that "Transfusion Blues" is too close to Cash's own, although
I'm not sure the details. B+(***)

Keb' Mo': Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues (1994-2003
[2003], Okeh/Epic/Legacy): The ringer in this reissues series -- i.e.,
the guy the record company likes even though he has squat to do with
the series. Kevin Moore emerged by tapping into a Robert Johnson vein
at a time when every run-of-the-mill bluesman hooked firmly into Albert
Collins. But aside from some learning, I can't say that he has all that
much to offer -- at his best he sounds like he might pass for Guy Davis,
who has some learning as well, not to mention better sense. Still, this
concentrates on his more trad vein, avoiding tripe like Big Wide
Grin. Useful for that, but minor. B

Los de Abajo: LDA v the Lunatics (2006, Real World):
I suppose rock en español runs much the same stylistic and qualitative
gamut as rock in English, which makes me dread Journey or Genesis en
español, but this is much closer to the Clash, or at least to the
Specials -- the source of the album title; but note that the English
version of "The Lunatics," with Neville Staples on board, rocks much
harder than the Spanish. A-

On the Town With the Oscar Peterson Trio (1958 [2001],
Verve): Piano trio with Herb Ellis (guitar) and Ray Brown (bass) -- no
drums, which cuts down on the force but not the swing. B+(**)

Preservation Hall Jazz Band: Shake That Thing (2001
[2004], Preservation Hall): Jazz as it's remembered in storybook New
Orleans, which is not quite the way Kid Ory and George Lewis played it,
let alone King Oliver and Johnny Dodds, but close enough to satisfy
the tourists. For one thing, the repertoire now includes Huey Smith's
"Little Liza Jane." Can't complain about that. B+(**)

Bonnie Raitt: Souls Alike (2005, Capitol): Haven't
given this much time. I suspect that someone more dedicated than I am
could find something to latch onto here -- I was intrigued by a bare
bones piece with a little tinkling piano. But as she moves away from
her roots romance, her singer-songwriter focus loses interest. No
reaction from Christgau yet on this one. He at least used to care
more about her than I ever did, so that's a sign this one is neither
here nor there. B

The Rough Guide to Boogaloo (1964-74 [2005], World
Music Network): Salsa, but historically specific, not least because
it was intended as trashy sell out -- why else drop so much of it in
English? actually, it brings back early '60s dance craze for an extra
shot of rhythm and silliness.
A-

Bessie Smith: Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues
(1923-33 [2003], Columbia/Legacy): At fifteen cuts, this isn't very
generous, but it hits the obvious points and works fine as an intro.
I've never gotten any deeper than the 2-CD Essential Bessie Smith
([1997], Columbia/Legacy), and don't even own that. To my ears, she
doesn't have a lot of range, but the power of a voice built to work
without a microphone is obvious. Some day I need to listen further,
but for normal purposes this gives you the basic idea. A-

Neil Young: Greatest Hits (1969-91 [2004], Reprise):
"Greatest hits inclusion based on original record sales, airplay, and
known download history." Fair enough, even if that means that eleven
of sixteen songs date from 1969-71, before he started to get really
interesting. I haven't played those early albums in ages, so I'm all
the more struck by how precise they sound. As for the voice and the
guitar, you know them instantly, and you know that he's managed to
turn those objectively flawed, somewhat weird, instruments into
things of extraordinary beauty. He did that all himself. Only one
song here since 1979, but trust me, he's still doing it. A

Jazz Prospecting (CG #10, Part 5)

Jazz CG (#9) finally came out last week. I still haven't seen the
print edition of the Village Voice, but I understand that the main
section sort order was as screwed up as the web posting originally
was. Don't know why they did it that way -- maybe some widows and
orphans thing? In any case, the order wasn't based on rank or any
logic I provided. The Honorable Mentions are in rank order, to the
extent any such thing is possible. The Duds are just alphabetized.
Rank order is never more than an arbitrary slotting -- few records
are so comparable as to make sort order clear. But those who are
really curious can always look at the year-to-date lists, such as
the one in progress for
2006.

This is the fifth week of prospecting for the next Jazz CG, but
the last four weeks have just been picking around the edges. This
week I finally dived into the big pile of new stuff -- zeroing in
on the obscure stuff, with a day-plus dedicated to singers. Didn't
find much, but that's part of the job. Next week should be much
the same, but probably with more revists to previously noted but
still pending albums.

Mark Elf: Liftoff (2005 [2006], Jen Bay): He's
a bop-influenced mainstream guitarist with a fairly soft tone
and some speed, especially on the alternate take to the title
piece, which does indeed lift off. Reminds me more of Herb Ellis
than Wes Montgomery; may have some affinity to Pat Martino, but
that goes beyond my area of expertise. It also helps that he
works with a dream band here: David Hazeltine, Peter Washington,
Lewis Nash. Tight, clean, professional; just what you'd expect.
B+(*)

Liberty Ellman: Ophiuchus Butterfly (2005 [2006],
Pi): Another guitar album, but Ellman works more as an intermediary
and facilitator, mostly for the three horns -- Steve Lehman's alto
sax, Mark Shim's tenor sax, and Jose Davila's tuba -- as they stutter
step in and out of phase. They maintain a fascinating indeterminacy,
unwilling to cohere even when they occasionally pull in roughly the
same direction.
[B+(***)]

Toph-E & the Pussycats: Live in Detroit (2004
[2006], CD Baby): No evidence of a label name, so I'll go with the
e-retailer. The leader is drummer Chris Parker, who also produced
and painted the cover art. The band includes David Mann (tenor sax,
soprano sax), Clifford Carter (piano, synth), Will Lee (bass, vocals),
and Ralph MacDonald (percussion). Don't know any of the, but I'd say,
and the photo doesn't disprove me, they've been around. The booklet
puts it this way: "a Who's Who of the greatest Jazz Funk Soul and
Rock session players on the planet." In other words, journeymen,
but damn good ones. Only one piece here originated in the band,
but they stretch out delightfully on Miles Davis and Don Grolnick.
Lee sings two -- one each from Bill Withers and Gene McDaniels --
and nails both. He's also the source of the DigiTech vox on "Rockin'
in Rhythm" -- less impressive, but a hot warm-up.
B+(**)

Lisa B: What's New Pussycat? Tunes & Tales About Cool
Cats (2006, Piece of Pie): As a rock critic, I'm used to
taking voices as they come, but sometimes you get one that's so
annoying nothing else much matters. This is one such voice. The
songs with their overstretched conceptual ties are another problem,
although I do sort of like the lullaby "When Malika Sleeps."
C-

Tom Lellis: Avenue of the Americas (2004-05 [2006],
Beamtide): Jazz singer, male; AMG reports that his influences include
Mark Murphy and Jon Hendricks. Likes to write lyrics to Pat Metheny
and Keith Jarrett songs. Plays a little piano and guitar, but gets
help here from Gary Fisher, Dave Kikoski, Kenny Werner, and Toninho
Horta. I've never cared for Hendricks' hipsterism or Murphy's slick
affectations, but Lellis doesn't register high on either's horseshit
scale. Doesn't register on much of any scale, probably because he has
more obvious problems. Like which is worse: the Beatles suite or the
bossa nova import?
C

Anne Ducros: Piano, Piano (2004 [2006], Dreyfus):
Her website proclaims her "de la diva du jazz vocal" -- reflecting
perhaps a background steeped in classical music. I like her voice,
her moves, even her scat, and how she handles many of her tried and
true standards. On the other hand, she keeps her French pieces --
a Jacques Prévert song and a piece by Erik Satie -- outside of my
grasp. And I don't think the multiple pianist concept works: two
or three songs each by five pianists -- Chick Corea, Jacky Terrasson,
René Urtreger, Enrico Pieranunzi, and Benoît de Mesmay -- doesn't
sort out cleanly. But for the record, I did find myself looking up
one pianist each time out: Pieranunzi.
B

Nancy Kelly: Born to Swing (2005 [2006], Amherst):
I wish artist's websites would provide such basic info as when and
where one was born. Age in singers doesn't matter as much as it does
with baseball players, but every little bit of info helps. This is
Kelly's third album. The two previous ones, on the same label, came
out in 1988 and 1997, so she's, uh, pacing herself in nice nine year
intervals. Her website claims a "thirty-plus year career," but also
notes that she started at age four, so she could be no older than
Jack Benny. Standards stuff, swings heartily, like her voice and
poise, and especially like her saxophone player: Houston Person.
B+(**)

Stevie Holland: More Than Words Can Say (2006, 150
Music): Art song seems like the right term here: standards, plus a
couple of originals, played for dramatic effect -- slow, articulate,
drenched in strings, torchers by aroma if not by attitude. There are
at least half a dozen distinct strains competing under the general
rubric of vocal jazz. This is one that has little appeal to me --
despite a couple of pianists I admire, the music has no connection
to the jazz tradition, nor does the very talented singer. This just
reminds me that had Barbra Streisand grown up on cabaret instead of
Broadway musicals she'd be touted as a jazz singer too.
B+(*)

Patricia Barber: Mythologies (2006, Blue Note):
Advance, not out unti Aug. 15, but after a string of vocalists I
thought I'd play one I might like. (Never got the Cassandra Wilson,
but maybe they knew better?) This is a song cycle based on Greek
mythology, with a bit of "Whiteworld" stuffed into "Oedipus." Back
when I was a philosophy major the main thing I learned was that
every dumb idea in western civilization was first thought up by
one damn fool Greek or another. Played this once while working
on other stuff, but all I discovered is that it doesn't register
unless you're listening. Then there's something to it: rousing
sax, a little hip-hop, a mess of background vocals from the
ominously named Choral Thunder. Some pluses and minuses -- might
come together, but I have my doubts about the chorus.
[B+(*)]

Michael Bolton: Bolton Swings Sinatra (2006, Concord):
First song is arranged for just strings; second for a big band with
horns. Score that battle of the bands for the horns. The band here
is slicker than Billy May's and hotter than Nelson Riddle's, which
means on average it isn't quite up to either. But the rael problem,
of course, is that what matters is the singer, not the song. If not,
Pat Boone would be Little Richard. Q.E.D.
C+

Amanda Ford: On Fire (2006, Alanna): A
pianist-singer-songwriter with little in the way of jazz connections --
probably unfair to consider her here, but it's usually a safe bet for
me to slot under jazz any unknown female vocalist who's not clearly
from Nashville or Austin. She's from Pittsburgh. The cover poses her
in an evening gown, sitting at a piano, with a candle on top. There's
a whole category these days of singer-songwriters marketed as jazz
for no better reason than that's their label's niche -- they're no
different from others marketed as folk, country, alt-rock, etc. This
is thoughtful, elegant, unexciting. Probably deserves another listen
now that I know what it isn't. Wish I thought I had time.
B

Fay Claassen: Sings Two Portrait of Chet Baker (2005
[2006], Jazz 'N Pulz, 2CD): Recorded by a Dutch singer and group in
remembrance of what would have been Baker's 75th birthday -- Baker
spent his last years in Europe, dying in Amsterdam when he fell, or
was pushed, out of a window. The second disc/portrait is the most
straightforward, with Claassen singing from Baker's songbook with
Jan Wessels' trumpet and Karel Boehlee's piano the key accompaniment.
She's a more conventional singer than Baker, but captures some of his
brittleness. The first disc refers back to Baker's legendary quartet
with Gerry Mulligan, with Jan Menu playing baritone sax, and the
singer scatting around where the trumpet might have been. Don't have
much of a feel for that part yet.
[B+(*)]

Heernt: Locked in a Basement (2005 [2006],
RazDaz/Sunnyside): Trio, led by drummer Tom Guiliana, who also
dabbles in electronics. With electric bass (Neal Persiani) and
tenor sax (Zac Colwell, who also employs alto, clarinet, flute,
keyboards, guitar and whatnot) this is an oblique groove album
with some rough edges -- the sort of thing I tend to fall for,
but not the most compelling example. Last piece is a dirge,
"Brawling on Epic Landforms" -- good title, but a downer.
B+(*)

Avishai Cohen: Continuo (2005 [2006], RazDaz/Sunnyside):
Bassist-led piano trio -- the pianist is Sam Barsh and the drummer is
Mark Guiliana -- with extra oud on half of the cuts, adding string
resonance to the dominantly mixed bass. The liner notes how tight the
trio has become. A more neutral word is dense, and until I figure it
out that will have to do. Cohen switches to electric for the last two
cuts, which I definitely like.
[B+(**)]

Jessica Williams: Billy's Theme: A Tribute to Dr. Billy
Taylor (2006, Origin): She does a lot of solo piano -- one
measure is that 9 of 22 albums listed in the current Penguin Guide
are solo. Her website claims she's done 40 albums, and certainly
there are more solos among them. She does them, of course, because
she can -- I can't think of a mainstream pianist more consistently
satisfying. Well, maybe Art Tatum -- one connection Williams and
Taylor share is admiration for Tatum. Beyond that I don't know:
Williams wrote and/or improvised all the pieces here, and I don't
know Taylor well enough to map any of the connections.
[B+(**)]

Rossano Sportiello: Heart and Soul (2005 [2006],
Arbors): Volume 14 of the Arbors Piano Series, solo piano recorded
at the Old Church in Bowsil, Switzerland. Whereas Concord's Maybeck
Hall Series went for relatively name pianists, including some who
are a little bit out there -- Joanne Brackeen was an early one --
Arbors seems to be grooming the next generation of Dick Hymans. This
one is distinguished by an exceptionally light touch, bringing a nice
swing to everything he plays.
B+(*)

Marty Grosz and His Hot Combination (2005 [2006],
Arbors): For some reason I hadn't put together that Marty is the son
of German artist-satirist Georg Grosz. I knew that Marty was born in
Berlin in 1930, but it's not all that rare for Europeans to latch
onto prewar American jazz styles. In one of the stories here he
identifies himself as American, which makes sense -- he came over
with his father in 1932. Still, he sings the first verse of "Just
a Gigolo" in German, after a 6-minute historical intro. That sets
up a 10-minute explication of "English Blues." Those stories are
interesting, but they're not all that replayable. On the other
hand, the music pieces are delightful: he plays Condon guitar,
and sings like Waller, but less convinced of his genius. Good
band, too, including Ken Peplowski, Scott Robinson and James
Dapogny -- all stars in a style that never loses its charm.
B+(**)

John Moulder: Trinity (2005 [2006], Origin): This
sounds more like that vaguest of categories, soundtrack music, than
jazz. It is expansive, richly orchestrated, wears its emotions on
its sleeve. Moulder composed, plays guitar, and keeps it flowing,
with a lot of help from friends -- Laurence Hobgood piano, atmospheric
horns (including Paul McCandless), various percussionists. Impressive
but not all that interesting.
B

Brian Owen: Unmei (2005 [2006], OA2): First album by
a young (age 23) Seattle-based trumpeter. Basic hard bop quintet format,
with tenor sax (Jay Thomas), piano (John Hansen), bass and drums, but
it's more advanced than that, with elaborate flows and intricate work.
One of the more impressive debuts I've heard lately, but I should note
that the parts that most caught my ear turned out to be the work of the
veteran saxman.
B+(*)

Ben Adams Quintet: Old Thoughts for a New Day (2005
[2006], Lunar Module): Leader plays vibes, with trumpet and tenor sax
up front, bass and drums out back. Didn't sound like much at first, but
then some of the trumpet (Erik Jekabson) and more of the sax (Mitch
Marcus) started to grab my attention. I've faded in and out, which
isn't a good sign, but suspect it deserves another spin.
[B+(*)]

Jerry Vivino: Walkin' With the Wazmo (2006, Zoho):
A fixture in Conan O'Brien's late night orchestra, Vivino credits
Louis Prima and Louis Jordan, not to mention Louis Armstrong, as
inspirations. The title jump blues shows some connection to Prima,
at least, but his humor deficit leaves Jordan's "Knock Me a Kiss"
a little on the sweet side, and his third vocal doesn't even try.
His tenor sax has some growl to it, but he takes half the album
here on flute, and when he does that he gives away a lot of weight.
B

David Bixler: Call It a Good Deal (2005 [2006],
Zoho): An in-betweener, not quite free jazz, but a good deal dicier
than the hard bop orthodoxy or your run-of-the-mill postbop. Bixler
plays alto sax. His main credit is working in Chico O'Farrill's
Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, which is a skill he doesn't make much
use of here. This is a quintet, with Scott Wendholt's trumpet the
other horn, and John Hart's guitar the chordal instrument. Both
take liberties with time, as does bass-drums, and that gives this
record an odd stutter that keeps it interesting. I'm not used to
Hart doing this sort of thing; he acquits himself well.
B+(*)

Bobby Zankel & the Warriors of the Wonderful Sound:
Ceremonies of Forgiveness (2005 [2006], Dreambox Media):
A large band with an even larger sound, this gets in your face from
the get go, and rarely lets up. Most of the solos jump out, including
Zankel's alto sax, Elliot Levin's tenor sax, and Tom Lawton's piano.
Their sound at least flirts with wonderfulness, but it also wears
down a bit -- maybe I mean wears you down.
B+(**)

Michael Bates' Outside Sources: A Fine Balance (2004
[2006], Between the Lines): Bates' previous album was called Outside
Sources, so this fits into the unfortunately common pattern of an
album generating a group name -- unfortunate, I say, because it makes
a mess of trying to keep things in discographical order. There's also
a disconnect in that the previous album, which I haven't heard, was
a trio -- bassist Bates, drummer Mark Timmermans, and reedist Quinsin
Nachoff -- but here expands to a quartet with the addition of trumpeter
Kevin Turcotte. (Evidently replaced by Kevin Johnson as the band plays
on.) Interesting music here, but I don't really have a handle on it
yet. The two horns don't run as free as in similar lineups, suggesting
that this is more thoroughly composed, or maybe just more limited.
One piece was based on Prokofiev.
[B+(**)]

Dave Liebman/Steve Swallow/Adam Nussbaum: We Three: Three
for All (2005 [2006], Challenge): The packaging here is
thoroughly confusing. The front cover, from top to bottom, says
Three for All in small bold print, then much larger but thinner
We Three, then below that the name musicians. The spine just says
Three for All. This could be parsed all sorts of ways, and I've
changed my mind several times thus far. Regardless of collective
intents, the record necessarily turns on the saxophonist-flautist.
In all the time I've been doing Jazz CG, no musician has been more
consistently disappointing than Liebman: a featured dud for his
Saxophone Summit with Brecker and Lovano, but that was only
the most flagrant of three or four albums I discretely buried. I
tended to blame this on his growing fondness for the soprano sax,
so I took it as a favorable sign that he opens here on tenor, and
held together quite nicely. Of course, he does bring his soprano
out, along with his flutes, but nothing goes terribly awry here.
I need to focus more on Swallow, who's somewhat hard to hear, but
Nussbaum is a big part of what holds this together. Maybe Liebman
just needs to be nudged back into his zone.
[B+(***)]

Joe Lovano: Streams of Expression (2006, Blue Note):
Advance copy, store date Aug. 1, so no urgent need to sweat details
like two of the piece-sets being called "Steams of Expression Suite" --
probably just a typo. Or how many of ten hornsmen are used how often.
Or why three groups of pieces are blocked out as suites, leaving three
other pieces as stragglers. Or what Gunther Schuller is doing here --
why he's involved in "The Birth of the Cool Suite" and not the others.
Or how much of the piano is provided by the late great John Hicks. Later
for all that. For now, note that there's an awful lot going on here, and
that some of it is quite remarkable. I've always preferred Lovano as the
sole horn in small groups, and I haven't cared for his previous work
with Schuller, especially Rush Hour, but this can't be dismissed
out of hand. Could rise or fall, but this is likely to wind up on quite
a few critics' year end lists.
[B+(***)]

Randy Brecker w/Michael Brecker: Some Skunk Funk (2003
[2006], Telarc): A partial reunion of the Brecker Brothers. Scanning
through the credits lists the only member of this band, aside from the
brothers, who was an alumni of their old fusion group is Will Lee. But
the new group isn't decisive here. This overheated concert tape from
Germany, "live at Leverkusener Jazztage," is dominated by the WDR Big
Band Köln, who manage to obliterate any sharp edge or crisp beat the
band throws their way. It's not that big bands can't play funk -- cf.
James Brown -- but this one can't. Can't play fusion either. And it's
rather sad to include an applause track on music this mediocre.
C

Monsieur Dubois: Ruff (2004 [2006], Challenge):
This Dutch group bills itself as "danceable hard jazz." Reminds me
of a scene in Running on Empty when the music teacher asks
what's the difference between samples of Madonna and Beethoven,
and River Phoenix answers that you can't dance to Beethoven. The
reason is that shifting rhythm confounds dance. This group can
force its hard jazz to be danceable by straitjacketing the beat,
but is it still jazz? Seems like it could be, but it's tough to
see how. Rock solid 4/4 is no more common in jazz these days than
rhymed couplets in poetry. This isn't accidental: lack of formula,
of predictability, keys our interest in jazz. The result is that
I spent most of the first spin here wondering when something was
going to happen, oblivious to all their hard work. I suppose it
is to their credit that this didn't immediately register as smooth
jazz either. It's more like dance funk played by a standard issue
jazz quintet -- plus extra percussion, so it's actually a sextet.
Acid jazz, I guess.
B

Shawn Glyde: Alternate Rhythm (2006, Imuso): The
idea here was to start with an interesting rhythmic concept, then
flesh it out. Glyde recorded the drum parts first, lots of time
signatures like 13/16 and 19/16, but however alt they may be, they
still stick within fairly rigid grooves. The melodies and harmonic
layering was added later, with keyboarders Jason Galuten and Brad
French and fusion bassist Jimmy Haslip sharing credits. Other mix-ins
include sax (more soprano than tenor), guitar, and Meghan McKown's
scat (two tracks). Glyde describes this as "constructed backwards,"
but what he's backed into is a semi-smooth fusion album. Still, he
hasn't drained it of interest -- credit the oblique strategies.
B+(*)

Mindi Abair: Life Less Ordinary (2006, GRP): Only
got the advance on this, which has been out since April. In fact, I
don't get much pop jazz anymore, even though I prospect it dutifully,
and even wrote a Voice piece on it a while back. The bottom line is
that the good stuff is far from great -- more like disco than anything
in the jazz tradition -- and the bad stuff is pretty awful: a range
that in my experience goes from low B+ to C- and may well get worse.
This one is well above average. Abair has a nice, rich, blues-tinged
tone on alto sax -- reminds me a bit of someone like Earl Bostic --
and she plays comfortably on top of Matthew Hager's uncluttered synth
beats. She also sings every other cut or so -- a plain and cool voice
that exudes no particular sexiness. On the other hand, most people
trust their eyes more than their ears in that regard, and that's
worked in her favor. Like most pop records, the hook song -- "Do
You Miss Me" -- comes first.
B

And these are final grades/notes on records I put back for further
listening the first time around.

The RH Factor: Distractions (2005 [2006], Verve):
Let's pretend there are two distinct concepts here, instead of just
one mess. On the one hand, we have four instrumentals -- two very
brief -- where Hargrove and Fathead Newman riff over contemporary
funk grooves. If he wanted to run with that, he could crank up the
heat a bit and aim for a state of the art update on Roy Eldridge --
that could be a lot of fun. On the other hand, he brings on a rehash
of the post-'90s r&b swamp with its cluttered vamps and turgid
grooves and muddled vocals, not even leaving much room for his horn.
I don't see much hope there, although I do dig the one blatant P-Funk
retread here ("A Place").
B

Roy Hargrove: Nothing Serious (2005 [2006], Verve):
The advance copy was attributed to the Roy Hargrove Quintet, but the
final backs down to the leader, the cover showing the musician in dark
portrait, the business end of his flugelhorn down on his chest, the
background all blurry. He looks confused, lost, or maybe just sad --
which explains nothing about the bright, brassy music inside, least
of all how serious to take it. If one insists on taking it seriously,
one has to wonder why he overreaches just to come up with clichés.
If not, why does he make going through the motions seem like so much
work? Don't know about him, but I'm confused, lost, and maybe sad
here. Only things I'm sure about: the unison harmony sounds awful;
Slide Hampton's guest spots are a plus; further play is more likely
to send this down than up.
B

Recycled Goods #32: June 2006

June's Recycled Goods column has been posted up at
Static
Multimedia. This one starts with a rant about reissue compilers
who don't bother to document where the music comes from. The two Pick
Hits are better than average in this regard -- well, Good for What
Ails You is better than that, one of the best pieces of historical
musicology I've seen as well as damn fine music. If I could pick three,
the third would have been Ardecore. I don't quite understand
what all's going on there -- the doc and all of the reviews I managed
to google are in Italian, and the mechanical trots are faulty enough
that they identify the singer as Giampaolo Happy. I only got the record
because I chased down Zu for a recent jazz release -- a too short but
interesting thing called The Way of the Animal Powers -- and
they took the initiative of sending it along. I do a fairly good job
of covering and filtering most of the jazz universe, but all Recycled
Goods can do is roll with the punches. Some labels and publicists feed
me a steady stream of discs; others do OK when I keep after them; some
take some browbeating, which I rarely feel up to; and some, like World
Music Network -- home of the Rough Guides -- are recalcitrant. The
two Rough Guides this time were records I bought, and gave me another
example of lousy documentation -- although I should note that the new
booklet format at least gets rid of the unreadable green-on-red pages.
I should also note that the Lee Dorsey and Louis Jordan records were
borrowed. I do what I can, based on what I can get my hands on. But
at 40-50 records per month, I seem to be getting my hands on about
all I can handle, so I don't have much incentive to browbeat. I just
keep cruising: this is Recycled Goods #32.

The Veil of Ignorance

This rather long quote comes from James Carroll, House of War
(pp. 255-257). As the book shows early on, the cold war arms race was
less between the US and the Soviet Union than between the service
branches of the US Defense Department. Those arms races were based
on projections of the growth of Soviet power that had some occasional
base in fact -- the Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons, missiles,
etc., almost always in response to US developments -- and were then
inflated by assertions of Manichean Soviet malevolence. The basis of
these claims was intelligence that was easily tailored to fit the
purposes of its advocates. One such argument was the "missile gap"
that Kennedy pummeled Nixon with in the 1960 presidential election --
a tip that came from then-Senator, formerly Secretary of the Air Force,
Stuart Symington. The quote:

Since Kennedy's own election campaign had made the missle gap the
nation's burning question, McNamara knew he had to deal with it at
once. If the Soviet Union was far ahead of the United States in rocket
manufacture and deployment, the kind of turnaround McNamara would have
to orchestrate in the Pentagon was clear. If, as some hold, Kennedy
was disingenuous in warning of the missile gap, McNamara would
establish that, too. He had to know what the facts were and how they
were arrived at. "So I went up to the Air Force on that first day," he
said.

He had no reason to know that the day he was referring to was the
one I had come to regard as the Pentagon's eighteenth birthday. "I
went to A-2 [the chief of air intelligence]. I can't think of his
name. He was a major general, very nice guy. I said I want to see the
basis of your study, the underlying data. So he got out photographs
and everything. Well, the photographs were U-2 photographs and were
very, very limited, in the sense that you couldn't be sure -- at least
I couldn't be sure -- what the hell we were looking at. The A-2 seemed
to be quite certain, but as it turned out, he was looking at them
through Air Force glasses."

McNamara compared the U-2 photographs with those from the new
reconnaissance satellite Discoverer, and what he found was not
only that the missile gap charge was false -- Arthur Schlesinger, not
an uninterested observer, later wrote that it was "in good faith
overstated" -- but that the intelligence system on which he and the
president had to depend was a shambles.

Each of the five services had its own intelligence operation. When
McNamara asked the Army for its estimate of deployed and ready Soviet
missiles as of January 1961, he was told ten; the Navy put the number
at less than half that. The Air Force set the figure at more than
fifty, and perhaps as high as two hundred. Within the Air Force, the
Strategic Air Command had yet another, independent intelligence
operation, and it insisted on higher numbers yet. And there were
equivalent disparities on projections of the gap in the future. The
Air Force had been the main source of all missile gap alerts,
beginning in 1957 with the Gaither Committee's and including Stuart
Symington's warning that the Soviet Union by the early 1960s would
have three thousand ICBMs. When McNamara demanded that Air Force
intelligence officers justify their estimates in light of the
Discoverer photographs, they could not. "Even Air Force
analysts were embarrassed by the pictures," the historian Fred Kaplan
wrote. "The images starkly rebutted the estimates of Air Force
intelligence." Soon it would be "discovered" that the actual number of
deployed Soviet ICBMs was four.

McNamara saw what was happening, what had by then become a regular
feature of Pentagon information gathering. Of the Air Force
intelligence chief, McNamara said to me, "I'm absolutey certain he was
not trying to mislead anybody -- the Air Force chief of staff, the
president, or the secretary of state, or anybody." In fact, it was
worse than mere deception. As we have seen again and again, each
service branch assessed enemy capacities based less on objective
readings of Soviet arsenals than on the branch's own procurement
wishes. Thus what Navy intelligence emphasized were sonar soundings
that showed a dangerous growth in the Soviet submarine force. The Army
saw the Red Army's drastic expansion of conventional divisions and
tank brigades on the edge of Europe and the prospect of Communist
aggression in brushfire wars in the Third World. And the Air Force saw
everything through the lens of its plans for the new B-70 bomber and
for the ten thousand Minuteman missiles a worst-case reading of
missile gap required.

As McNamara indicates, none of this is to indict intelligence
agencies for outright dishonesty. Intelligence assessments moving up a
chain of command have a way of confirming presuppositions at the
top. We saw how, during World War II, Allied bomber generals wanted to
believe an air war against cities would destroy enemy morale, and
British intelligence assessments (disputed by some Americans) said it
would be so. In the late 1940s, Harry Truman wanted to believe in a
long-term American nuclear monopoly so that he could berate Moscow --
and Leslie Groves and then the CIA assured him it would be so. The
same pattern would be repeated when Lyndon Johnson was told what he
wanted to hear about Vietnam, and when Ronald Reagan's obsession with
the "evil empire" drew support from intelligence that missed the
significance of nonviolent democracy movements -- the opposite of
"evil" -- behind the Iron Curtain.

McNamara was unusual among Secretaries of Defense in wanting to
get his hands on unvarnished facts. McNamara attempted to get past
the service biases of intelligence by creating his own intelligence
agency: the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The DIA is now famous
as Donald Rumsfeld's stovepipe, where useful bits of propaganda masked
as intelligence are sucked up into the political sphere. But it turns
out that the DIA has been corrupted by the political needs of Defense
Secretaries going back to Melvin Laird in 1969. McNamara had picked
Lt. Gen. Joseph Carroll -- the author's father -- as the first head
of the DIA. Laird fired Carroll when the latter refused to remove a
statement from an intelligence estimate that said that the Soviet Union
wasn't pursuing a first strike capability. Laird did so because he
needed intelligence to back up his campaign for an Anti-Ballistic
Missile (ABM) system.

Of course, you needn't wonder what the CIA was doing back then.
They had been responsible for the "intelligence" that showed how the
Cuban masses would rise to support the Bay of Pigs invasion against
Fidel Castro. They followed that up with numerous attempts to ply
prostitutes to try to seduce Castro into smoking an exploding cigar.
As the Dusty Foggo scandal indicates, they haven't exactly made a
lot of progress in the last forty-five years.

One thing to note above is how the service intelligence branches
backed down when presented with a common set of data. Politicization
of intelligence is something that depends less on one's viewpoint --
although that is always a factor -- than on the ability to keep data
private. If everyone has their own data, or their own non-data -- in
the dark who knows? -- every conclusion is possible. When forced to
show each other their data, as opposed to being allowed to just argue
their interpretations, intelligence will generally converge on one or
a small number of tightly constrained conclusions. Multiple conclusions
can be further refined by obtaining further data. This, of course, is
how science works -- indeed, it is why science works. However, the
instinct to keep intelligence secret subverts and corrupts it, and
that's what we've seen time and again in the so-called Intelligence
Community.

The idea of establishing an umbrella National Intelligence director
is a bit like McNamara's invention of the DIA. But it's not much like
it because instead of assigning to it someone interested in truth Bush
approinted John Negroponte, the ultimate political hack. We won't have
to wait a few years for it to become corrupted, because it was born in
original sin. An administration that has no interest in, or respect for,
truth cannot be trusted to have departments that work in secret -- let
alone forty-some billion dollars worth of them. The only thing that
keeps this from being a recipe for disaster is the ample evidence that
just such disasters have already occurred.